UC-NRLF 


SB    57E    b75 


GIFT  OF 


DO 


SHAKESPEAREAN 
STUDIES 

WILLIAM  RADER 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
BOSTON 


Copyright  1912  by  WHliam  Rader 
All  rights  reserved 


The  Oorham  Press,  Boston.  U.  S.  A. 


To  my  Daughter 
KATHRYN 


Why  take  the  artistic  way  to  prove  so  much? 

Because  it  is  the  glory  and  good  of  Art, 

That  Art  remains  the  one  way  possible 

Of  speaking  truth,  to  mouths  like  mine  at  least. 

How  look  a  brother  in  the  face  and  say 

"  Thy  right  is  wrong,  eyes  hast  thou  yet  art  blind, 

Thine  ears  are  stuffed  and  stopped,  despite  their 

length: 

And,   oh,   the  foolishness  thou   countest  faith!" 
Say  this  as  silverly  as  tongue  can  trott — 
The  anger  of  the  man  may  be  endured, 
The  shrug,  the  disappointed  eyes  of  him 
Are  not  so  bad  to  bear — but  here's  the  plague 
That  all  this  trouble  comes  of  telling  truth, 
Which  truth,  by  when  it  reaches  him,  looks  false, 
Seems  to  be  just  the  thing  it  would  supplant, 
Nor  recognizable  by  whom  it  left: 
While  falsehood  would  have  done  the  work  of  truth. 
But  art, — wherein  man  nowise  speaks  to  men, 
Only  to  mankind, — Art  may  tell  a  truth 
Obliquely,  do  the  thing  shall  breed  the  thought, 
Nor  wrong  the  thought,  missing  the  mediate  word. 

BROWNING — "The  Ring  and  the  Book." 


FOREWORD 

THIS  little  book  is  the  fruit  of  sermons 
given  from  a  city  pulpit  on  the  ethics  of 
Shakespeare.  The  preacher  has  never 
seriously  attempted  a  homiletic  treat- 
ment of  the  great  English  master,  whose  works  are 
replete  with  profitable  lessons  dealing  with  the  simple 
moralities.  Shakespeare  makes  his  appeal  to  all 
men,  the  preacher  not  excepted.  For  the  most  part 
the  response  has  been  given  by  the  theatre  and  the 
literary  critic.  Broader  than  any  sect  and  indepen- 
dent of  any  school  of  theological  thought,  Shakes- 
peare is  peculiarly  inviting  to  the  student  of  ethics. 
Every  tragedy,  comedy  amd  drama  is  founded  upon 
certain  well  defined  principles  of  conduct.  The 
universality  of  his  searching  thought,  the  striking 
application  of  truth  to  life,  the  dramatic  situations 
which  illustrate  artistically  his  ethical  ideals,  afford 
an  unusual  field  for  the  moralist.  -Shakespeare  is  a 
X  ^prophet-poet  whose  chief  business  is  not  to  entertain, 
but  instruct  in  the  deepest  things  of  life.  These 
studies  are  given  to  the  world  with  the  hope  that  the 
lessons  taught  may  create  a  new  interest  in  the  study 
of  his  works,  and  be  profitable  as  a  guide  in  the  way 
of  life. 


CONTENTS 

Macbeth — A  Tragedy  of  Ambition 9 

Othello— The  Drama  of  the  Domestic  Life 21 

Hamlet — A  Study  in  Revenge,  Duty  and  Doubt  33 

King  Lear — Filial  Ingratitude 45 

The  Aspic  in  the  Basket  of  Figs,  or  Antony 

and  Cleopatra 55 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  and  the  Golden  Rule .  67 

King  Richard  III — the  Satan  of  Shakespeare.  85 


MACBETH— A  TRAGEDY  OF  AMBITION 

"For  what  shall  a  man  be  profited  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world,  and  forfeit  his  life."     Matt.  16:  26. 

BY  virtue  of  his  intellectual  range  and 
height,  Shakespeare  is  the  common  proper- 
ty of  mankind.  He  belongs  to  the  world 
as  much  as  Mont  Blanc  or  Shasta.  The 
preacher  and  the  actor  alike  claim  him.  For  the 
most  part,  the  theatre  has  not  a  monopoly  of  Shakes- 
peare. The  actor,  not  the  preacher  has  lived  and 
thought  in  the  Shakespearean  atmosphere.  The 
church  has  read  Milton  and  Dante,  but  has  been 
slow  in  appreciating  the  higher  values  of  Shakespeare, 
whose  overflowing  genius  reaches  beyond  the  narrow 
confines  of  schools,  systems,  and  sects.  He  stands 
above  and  beyond  these,  but  his  thought  involves 
the  unshifted  foundations  of  evangelical  religion. 
Each  play  centres  in  a  ruling  human  passion  touching 
a  lesson  as  doctrinally  clean-cut  as  any  sermon 
preached  by  John  Calvin,  John  Knox,  or  Jonathan 
Edwards.  Dipping  his  pen  in  the  ink-pot  of  great 
Nature,  the  nature  of  the  universe,  and  of  universal 
man,  he  has  analysed,  interpreted,  and  illustrated  the 
fundamental  truths  of  every  day  life.  Wedded  to  his 
keen  analyses  is  the  skill  of  an  artist.  There  are  many 


10  SHAKESPIiAREAN  STUDIES 

reasons  why  ministers  of  the  gospel  should  inform 
themselves  of  the  ethical  values  of  Shakespeare.  He 
sets  the  standard  of  excellence  in  the  use  of  words 
which  he  uses,  as  an  artist  selects  his  brilliant  bits 
of  stone  or  glass,  and  places  them  with  such  discern- 
ment as  to  make  a  perfect  expression.  His  power- 
ful appeal  to  the  imagination  is  rewarding  to  any 
preacher.  The  portraits  of  men  and  women  which 
he  has  drawn  so  skilfully,  are  studies  in  psychology 
and  character.  The  men  and  women  who  people 
his  plays,  and  move  back  and  forth  through  the 
shadow  and  light  of  his  manifold  genius,  are  the  men 
and  women  who  sit  in  the  church  pews  and  walk  on  the 
streets  of  our  modern  cities.  His  knowledge  of  law, 
religion,  science,  history,  tradition  and  life,  bids  the 
thoughtful  mind  enter  the  great  cathedral  of  his 
universal  learning.  Furthermore,  Shakespeare  is 
rich  with  the  interpretations  of  scripture.  The 
Bible  is  a  companion  volume  of  Shakespeare,  and 
the  minister  and  actor  meet  upon  a  common  plane. 
No  scholar  reaches  up  into  such  spiritual  fellowship 
with  the  Bible.  There  is  a  moral  affinity  between 
them. 

Shakespeare  has  gathered  the  materials  of  his 
plays  from  history  and  tradition.  He  has  seized 
the  driftwood  and  drawn  out  of  the  sea  of  legend  and 
story,  fragmentary  information  which  has  been 
utilized  with  artistic  skill,  but  the  moral  lesson  has 
been  drawn  from  the  facts  of  revelation,  Shakespeare 
is  emphatically  a  Bible  student.  Measured  by  the 


MACBETH  11 

Bible  he  is  as  orthodox  as  Tolstoi,  and  as  severe  in  his 
Calvinistic  delineations  as  John  Calvin.  The  preach- 
er, then,  must  use  Shakespeare  to  illuminate  the 
Bible,  and  the  Bible  may  be  used  to  throw  light  upon 
Shakespeare. 

Here,  for  example,  is  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth,  and 
over  against  it  is  placed  the  familiar  passage  "What 
doth  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul,"  or  "what  shall  a  man  give  in 
exchange  for  his  soul?"  What  does  this  familiar 
passage  mean?  It  teaches  that  a  man's  self  respect, 
that  is,  his  life  or  soul,  and  all  that  they  embody  in 
his  personality,  is  of  supreme  value;  that  a  man 
cannot  substitute  anything  for  his  life;  that  ambition 
is  good,  but  that  it  must  not  over-ride  and  take  the 
place  of  a  man's  essential  life. 

The  preacher  may  use  the  text  for  a  study  in 
ambition,  and  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth  as  a  lighted 
taper  to  guide  him  in  his  researches.  Ambition  is  a 
world  passion.  It  discloses  the  inmost  secrets  of 
sin, — a  moral  force,  and  yet  a  peril.  When  exercised 
as  an  aspiration,  and  a  determination  to  reach  a 
right  goal,  ambition  is  a  motive  power,  the  influence 
of  which  has  governed  the  destinies  of  the  world. 
All  Vices  are  perverted  virtues.  Fire  is,  at  once  a 
blessing  and  a  curse.  The  keen  edge  of  the  sword 
may  defend  or  destroy.  Ambition,  like  powder,  may 
open  the  path  to  ships  and  trains,  or  devastate  and 
deal  a  death-blow  to  life. 

The  story  of  Macbeth  reveals  the  possibilities  of 


12  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

false  and  vaulting  ambition,  and  affords  a  striking 
commentary  of  the  text.  The  tragedy  is  laid  in  the 
time  of  Duncan,  the  Meek.  His  kinsman  was  Lord 
or  Thane  Macbeth.  He  and  Banquo,  a  Scottish 
general,  returning  from  a  victorious  battle,  and 
crossing  a  blasted  heath,  were  stopped  by  three  weird 
witches  who  greeted  Macbeth  as  the  "King  that 
shalt  be  hereafter."  To  Banquo  they  referred  as  one 
destined  to  be  "lesser  than  Macbeth  and  greater! 
not  so  happy,  but  much  happier,"  and  predicted 
that  his  sons  would  one  day  reign  as  kings  in  Scotland. 
The  witches  dropped  the  evil  seeds  of  a  false 
ambition  in  the  receptive  soil  of  Macbeth's  mind, 
and  the  opportunity  soon  came  for  him  to  realize  his 
ambition.  Macbeth  told  his  wife  of  the  strange 
prediction,  and  that  he  had  already  had  conferred 
upon  him  the  dignity  of  Thane  of  Cawdor.  It 
transpired  that  the  King  was  entertained  in  Mac- 
beth's castle,  whereupon  Lady  Macbeth  planned  the 
details  of  his  murder,  which  she  herself  tried  to  accom- 
plish, but  failed,  and  induced  her  husband  to  do  the 
bloody  deed,  which  he  did.  Duncan's  sons  ran  away, 
Malcom  seeking  refuge  in  the  English  court,  and 
Donalbain,  in  Ireland.  Remembering  the  predic- 
tion that  Banquo's  sons  should  be  kings  after  him, 
led  to  the  murder  of  Banquo,  who  had  been  invited 
to  a  banquet,  but  who  was  killed  on  his  way.  Albeit 
his  ghost,  appearing  at  the  banquet,  occupied  the 
chair  about  to  be  filled  by  Macbeth.  Then  came  the 
retribution  of  these  tragedies,  the  torture  of  conscience, 


MACBETH  13 

the  possible  suicide  of  Lady  Macbeth,  the  death  of 
Macbeth  on  the  field  of  battle  by  Macduff. 

In  the  development  of  this  tragedy  let  us  think 
first,  of  the  preparation  for  the  crime.  I  name  three 
stages — the  witches,  the  wife,  and  the  ambition  for 
the  throne,  or  selfishness.  These  witches  are  not 
broomstick  witches  or  gypsy  fortune  tellers,  but 
"goddesses  of  destinie"  brewing  charms  in  their 
hellish  caldrons.  Mischief  is  brewed  through  unseen 
causes.  These  witches  are  ideas,  solicitations, 
principalities  and  powers,  the  mysterious  cause  of 
evil  which  no  philosophy  has  caught,  and  no  psy- 
chology has  explained.  They  are  the  philosophy  of 
crime.  Gervinius  regards  them  as  ''the  embodiment 
of  inward  temptation/'  which  may  be  understood  in 
the  language  of  Dowden  as  "an  apocalypse  of  power 
auxiliary  to  vice,  as  really  as  there  is  a  manifesta- 
tion of  virtuous  energy."  Such  is  the  Mephisto- 
pheles  of  Goethe.  Such  is  the  doctrine  of  evil  of 
Saint  Paul.  Forces  of  good  and  evil  are  moving 
about  independently  of  the  will  of  man. 

"There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamed  of  in  your  philosophy." 

The  translation  of  the  noble  soul  of  Macbeth  into  a 
foul  murderer  is  gradual.  Men  are  not  suddenly 
plunged  into  crime.  There  is  a  logical  approach. 
The  witches  are  pointed  out  as  the  first  means.  These 
afford  him  a  wilderness  of  temptation.  The  appear- 


14  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

ance  of  the  witches  strikes  the  key  note  of  the  tragedy. 
They  are  the  chorus  of  evil  which  anticipates  the 
tragedy  which  ensues.  Macbeth  was  a  good  man, 
but  the  pollen  of  the  mind  will  oft'times  catch  and 
fructify  the  evil  seed  of  the  viewless  air.  The  history 
of  crime  is  concealed  in  the  mystery  of  the  unseen, 
whence  come  evil  thoughts  which  hatch  into  wicked 
deeds. 

Lady  Macbeth  is  the  second  cause.  She  is  Shakes- 
peare's wickedest  woman.  Her  influence  on  her 
husband  is  in  singular  contrast  to  the  effect  of  Pilate's 
wife  upon  Pilate.  These  two  powerful  women 
standing  in  the  background  denote  the  influence  of 
woman  on  man.  Women  rule  the  world.  Study  the 
powerful  portrait  of  Ellen  Terry  as  Lady  Macbeth 
in  the  Tate  gallery,  London.  Pilate  may  not  always 
obey,  nor  Macbeth  hasten  to  perform  the  bloody 
deed,  but,  for  the  most  part,  the  woman  bends  the 
will  of  the  strongest  man.  Pilate's  wife  urged  the 
imperial  Roman  to  wash  his  hands  of  crime;  Lady 
Macbeth  induced  Macbeth  to  redden  his  hands  with 
crime.  The  two  women  invite  a  study  in  contrast. 
Macbeth  confided  in  his  wife  the  revelations  of  the 
witches,  and  from  that  moment  she  assumed  the  re- 
sponsibility of  realizing  the  growing  dream  of  power. 
It  is  observed  that  this  unholy  ambition  which  has 
so  often  stained  the  social  and  political  world, 
when  in  possession  of  strong  women,  corrupts  every 
noble  feminine  principle.  She  enters  the  portal  of 
his  hitherto  stainless  life,  and  devastates,  and  cor- 


MACBETH  15 

rupts.  She  poisons  all  within  her  reach.  She  sets 
aside  domestic  happiness,  the  laws  of  honor,  and  the 
standards  of  her  sex  and  prepares  stealthily,  cunning- 
ly, and  effectively  for  the  murder  of  the  King.  That 
she  may  be  furnished  with  the  fiendish  equipment 
for  the  deed,  she  utters  a  soliloquy  of  sin,  which  is  a 
prayer  for  incarnate  evil  that  her  sensibilities  might 
be  intoxicated  with  hell's  liquor  to  do  the  bloody 
deed. 

"Come,   you  spirits 

That  tend  on  mortal  thoughts,  unsex  me  here, 
And  fill  me,  from  the  crown  to  the  toe,  top-full 
Of  direst  cruelty!  make  thick  my  blood; 
Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse, 
That  no  compunctious,  visitings  of  nature 
Shake  my  fell  purpose,  nor  keep  peace  between 
The  effect  and  it !     Come  to  my  woman's  breasts, 
And  take  my  milk  for  gall,  you  murdering  minis- 
ters, 

Wherever  in  your  sightless  substances 
You  wait  on  nature's  mischief !  Come,  thick  night, 
And  pall  thee  in  the  dunnest  smoke  of  hell, 
That  my  keen  knife  see  not  the  wound  it  makes, 
Nor  heaven  peep  through  the  blanket  of  the 

dark, 
To  cry  'Hold,  hold."' 

Two  things  relieve  slightly  the  fiendish  work  of 
Lady  Macbeth.  She  is  ambitious  for  her  husband 


16  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

and  she  remembers  her  father,  whose  face  she  saw 
reflected  in  the  countenance  of  the  king.  She  is  a 
Titaness  marred  by  no  petty  vice,  but  wholly  given 
up  to  the  one  passion  of  murder,  conceived  in  an 
inordinate  ambition  for  political  power.  She  opens 
the  awful  possibilities  of  depraved  womanhood. 
"She  is  a  splendid  picture  of  evil,  nevertheless, — a 
sort  of  sister  of  Milton's  Lucifer,  and,  like  him,  we 
surely  imagine  her  externally  majestic  and  beauti- 
ful." (Mrs.  Jamieson.)  Such  is  this  fascinating  fiend 
who  plans  an  evil  deed,  tempts  her  husband,  and 
creates  the  conditions  of  the  tragedy  which  follows. 

The  third  impelling  motive  inducing  Macbeth  to 
surrender  to  the  wily  temptress,  is  ambition  to 
reach  a  throne  by  a  short  cut.  Ambition  was  one  of 
the  temptations  in  the  wilderness.  It  was  the 
powerful  and  successful  solicitation  made  to  Napol- 
leon.  It  is  the  appeal  made  to  all  men  of  power. 
Rooted  in  selfishness,  it  fastens  itself  in  the  very 
heart  of  human  nature.  Only  the  grace  of  God  can 
make  it  righteous.  All  sin  finds  its  sustenance  in 
selfishness.  The  tragedy  of  Macbeth  is  a  tragedy 
of  supreme  and  uncontrolled  selfishness. 

"To  the  Christian  moralist,  Macbeth's  guilt  is 
so  dark  that  its  degree  cannot  be  estimated,  as  there 
are  no  shades  in  black.  But  to  the  mental  psy- 
chologist, to  whom  nerve  rather  than  conscience,  the 
function  of  the  brain  rather  than  the  power  of  the 
will,  is  an  object  of  study,  it  is  impossible  to  omit 
from  the  calculation  the  influences  of  the  supernatu- 


MACBETH  17 

ral  event,  which  is  not  only  the  starting  point  of  the 
action,  but  the  remote  cause  of  the  mental  phe- 
nomena. " 

The  moral  loss  in  such  a  transaction  is  the  lesson 
of  the  play  and  the  illustration  of  the  text.  Macbeth 
is  the  tragedy  of  a  great  loss,  of  lives  deliberately 
thrown  away,  of  honor  sacrificed,  and  of  self-respect 
put  to  open  shame.  There  is  no  gain  for  any  of  the 
conspirators.  Death  follows  death,  and  tragedy 
succeeds  tragedy  with  quick  succession.  This  is 
the  inevitable  consequence  of  the  great  moral 
principle  which  binds  together  loss  and  forces  of  the 
ethical  world.  It  is  the  dogmatic  assertion  of 
retributive  justice  on  which  Shakespeare  has  built 
all  his  tragedies.  He  thinks  of  a  universe  which  is 
morally  intolerant  of  wrong  doing.  From  a  natural 
theology  as  well  as  from  revealed  truth,  he  draws 
a  lesson  of  retribution,  resistless  in  logic,  accurate 
in  moral  aim,  and  definite  in  purpose.  The  hell  of 
Shakespeare  is  unlike  the  hell  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 
It  does  not  smell  of  brimstone,  but  is  not  less  real. 

The  moral  order  of  the  world  resents  the  slightest 
violation  of  law.  Such  is  the  world  of  Shakespeare, 
as  responsive  to  the  quake  of  sin  as  the  seismograph 
to  the  tremor  of  the  earth.  The  hell  of  Shakespeare 
is  not  pictured  in  the  terminology  or  in  the  colors  of 
Angelo,  but  with  the  deeper  consciousness  of  Milton, 
is  described  as  within.  The  conscience  of  Macbeth 
and  Lady  Macbeth,  writhing  in  the  frenzy  of  fear, 
becomes  the  horrible  manifestation  of  the  unseen 


18  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

fears  which  burn  and  consume  away  the  happiness  of 
the  heart.     Says  Macbeth: 

"Whence  is  that  knocking? 

How  is't  with  me,  when  every  noise  appals  me? 
What    hands    are    here?    ha!    they    pluck    out 

mine  eyes! 

Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand?  No;  this  my  hand  will 

rather 

The   multitudinous   seas   incarnadine, 
Making  the  green  one  red." 
Lady     Macbeth: 

"Out  damned  spot!  out,  I  say!  One:  two: 
Why,  then  'tis  time  to  do't.     Hell  is  murky! 
Fie,  my  lord,  fie!  a  soldier,  and  af eared?     What 
Need  we  fear  who  knows  it,  when  none  can  call 
Our  power  to  account?     Yet  who  would  have 

thought 
The  old  man  to  have  had  so  much  blood  in  him?" 

In  the  sleep  walking  scene  where  Lady  Macbeth 
walks  in  two  worlds,  with  wild  fears  of  the  unawak- 
ened  consciousness,  she  indicates  the  deep  damnation 
of  her  despair  which  we  may  believe  ends  in  suicide; 
while  Macbeth  meets  Macduff  upon  the  field  of  war, 
and  dies  the  death  of  a  criminal.  What  does  it 
all  mean?  What  doth  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain 
everything  and  lose  himself?  What  does  it  profit 
a  physician  to  murder  his  wife  and  lose  his  life? 


MACBETH  19 

What  gain  to  a  young  millionaire  who  kills  his  enemy 
and  spends  his  life  in  an  asylum  or  prison?  What 
profit  to  the  grafter  who  gains  a  whole  city 
and  is  sentenced  to  fourteen  years  in  the  peni- 
tentiary? The  problem  of  moral  loss  and  gain 
is  identical  with  that  of  life  and  death.  What  doth 
it  profit  a  man  whatever  he  gain  if  he  lose  his  self- 
respect?  These  losses  in  the  world  of  affairs  com- 
prehend the  world  tragedy  of  Macbeth  played  upon 
the  vast  American  stage  washed  by  two  oceans, 
played  upon  the  European  stage,  the  foot-lights  of 
which  are  the  cities  which  are  the  centres  of  popula- 
tion. 

Witness  this  play  and  in  the  evolution  of  its  scenes 
and  situations,  mark  the  down-fall  of  strong  men. 
Vaulting  ambition  leads  to  short-cuts  to  fame  and 
fortune.  Observe  how  men  will  climb  to  thrones 
from  the  bloody  bodies  of  those  who  are  in  the  way. 
The  wickedest  is  the  man  who  would  win  fortune  or 
authority  over  the  wrecks  of  others,  and  this  is  what 
Macbeth  did.  Such  heroes  of  transient  fortune  do 
not  last  long.  God's  laws  will  not  suffer  them  to 
live  and  be  happy.  Witness  the  Macbeths  in  busi- 
ness, who  by  special  privileges  and  dishonest  methods 
make  their  way  to  empire,  "over  broken  oaths  and 
through  a  sea  of  blood."  The  political  gain  in  the 
United  States  is  a  stinging  rebuke  to  the  Macbeths 
of  the  market-place.  A  more  personal  consideration 
of  this  thought  leads  to  the  reflection  that  the  choice 
of  man  is  between  being  and  having.  This  is  the  age 


20  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

of  having,  rather  than  being;  of  position,  rather  than 
power;  of  accumulation,  rather  than  depth  of  personal- 
ity. The  desire  to  have,  sacrifices  in  many  lives,  the 
desire  to  be.  In  the  end,  the  man  who  is,  wins.  Who 
has  being,  depth  of  power,  richness  of  nature,  and 
well  fashioned  ideals,  is  the  richest.  Better  stand  be- 
fore the  throne  of  God  a  beggar  in  purse,  and  rich  in 
spirit,  than  to  stand  there  possessing  all  the  world 
and  yet  without  one's  own  life.  Furthermore,  it  is 
a  choice  between  saving  one's  life  at  the  expense  of 
the  world,  and  saving  both  the  individual  and  the 
individual's  world.  Redemption  is  not  the  nega- 
tive experience  which  our  fathers  taught  us  to 
believe;  that  we  are  as  brands  snatched  from  the 
burning  and  rescued  from  some  dreadful  hereafter. 
Redemption  is  a  positive  experience  which  is  salva- 
tion to  everything  that  is  good  and  from  everything 
that  is  bad.  A  man  should  save  the  world  in  which 
he  lives.  He  has  no  right  to  think  only  of  himself. 
Indeed  so  closely  is  the  legitimate  occupation  and 
profession  to  a  man's  world  that  he  must  of  necessity 
save  his  professional  or  business  world  even  as  he 
would  save  his  soul.  We  must  bring  into  the  King- 
dom of  God  the  little  worlds  in  which  we  live,  other- 
wise we  have  not  made  a  complete  sacrifice.  For 
what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul? 


OTHELLO— THE    DRAMA   OF   THE 
DOMESTIC   LIFE 

"What,  therefore,  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man 
put  asunder."  Matthew  19:  6. 

AMONG  the  relationships  of  life,  that  of 
the  home  is  the  most  far-reaching  and 
sensitive.     The  relation  of  the  citizen  to 
the   state   involves   the   destiny   of   the 
nation.     The  teacher's  relation  to  his  pupil,  and  the 
soldier's  obligations  to  the  army  vitally  affect    the 
character  of  the  individual  and  the  success  of  armies, 
but  that  between  husband  and  wife  is  of  the  greatest 
significance.     The  machinery  of  the  home  is  easily 
disordered.     The  mechanism  of  the  locomotive  is  not 
delicately  made  like  that  of  a  watch.     It  is  stronger 
and  larger,  and  more  crude.     The  fine  construction 
of  a  watch  illustrates  the  sensitiveness  of  the  domes- 
tic life.     The  slightest  infraction  of  law  will  throw 
it  out  of  gear. 

In  the  tragedy  of  Othello  the  dropping  of  a  hand- 
kerchief caused  a  domestic  earthquake  in  the  affection- 
ate and  happy  home  of  Othello.  The  Lord,  in 
his  anticipation  of  easily  disordered  households,  says 
in  his  dissertation  on  marriage  and  divorce,  "What 
God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put  asunder," 

21 


22  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

an  injunction  that  is  illustrated  in  Shakespeare's 
Othello.  The  characters  in  the  situation  of  this 
dramatic  analysis  of  domestic  troubles  are  known  to 
every  observer  of  social  life.  All  of  Shakespeare's 
characters  are  well  known.  He  has  taken  them 
from  practical  life,  and  they  are  neither  new  nor 
antique.  Nothing  in  Shakespeare  is  particularly 
original  except  in  expression.  It  will  be  seen  in  the 
presentation  of  this  thought  how  well  known  the 
leading  characters  are,  and  how  we  read  of  them 
daily  in  the  papers.  The  story  of  Othello  is  of 
charming  interest.  Lord  McCauley  called  this  the 
greatest  work  of  man. 

Brabantio,  a  wealthy  Venetian  senator,  had  a  fair 
daughter  named  Desdemona.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  much  history.  A  man  had  a  daughter!  How 
this  shapes  itself  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  destiny, 
and  fate  is  the  cause  of  both  sorrow  and  joy.  Natural- 
ly she  was  sought  by  many  suitors,  among  them  a 
dark  skinned  Moor  named  Othello,  who  was  eloquent 
and  cultivated.  He  had  traveled  far  and  suffered 
privations  of  which  he  was  willing  to  talk.  Desde- 
mona would  quickly  do  her  work  and  sit  with  open- 
eyed  wonder  listening  to  the  recital  of  his  adventures. 
A  clandestine  courtship  and  marriage  ensued,  and 
while  Brabantio  had  welcomed  this  delightful 
stranger  to  his  home,  he  turned  against  him,  as 
fathers  sometimes  do,  when  he  discovered  that 
Othello  was  the  husband  of  his  daughter.  For  this, 
Othello  was  summoned  before  the  Duke  to  show 


OTHELLO  23 

cause  why  he  should  not  be  punished  for  this  interest- 
ing adventure,  and  at  the  same  time  was  summoned 
as  a  soldier  to  be  sent  to  the  Island  of  Cyprus,  where 
the  Turks  required  the  attention  of  the  Venetian 
Army.  He  was  therefore  before  the  court,  both  as  a 
culprit  and  as  a  soldier. 

Brabantio,  like  most  fathers,  surrendered  to  the 
inevitable  domestic  conditions  which  had  so  un- 
ceremoniously been  imposed  upon  him  and  gave  him 
his  daughter.  Othello  and  Desdemona  came  to 
Cyprus  where  conditions  were  such  that  their 
presence  was  hardly  required.  It  was  in  Cyprus 
that  two  other  characters  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
These  are  introduced  as  keys  to  the  domestic  situa- 
tion. Reformers  sometimes  speak  in  statistics — in 
generalities — on  social  problems.  If  one  can  get  at 
these  problems  in  terms  of  personality,  and  find 
the  people  who  create  the  conditions,  he  will  go  far 
toward  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  modern 
situation.  Problems  are  inseparable  from  people, 
and  to  analyse  a  person  is  to  get  nearer  the  heart  of 
the  situation  than  to  study  a  condition. 

One  Cassio,  a  Florentine  soldier,  appears  as  the 
lieutenant  of  Othello.  Indeed,  Othello  did  the 
unsafe  thing  of  inviting  Cassio's  assistance  in  the 
wooing  of  Desdemona.  lago,  marrieo^  to  Emelia. 
is  a  pretended  friend  to  both,  but  jealous  of  Cassio, 
It  is  his  purpose  to  do  what  Samson  did — pull  down 
the  temple  on  the  heads  of  all,  exclude  Cassio  from 
the  office  of  lieutenant,  and  destroy  the  home  of 


24  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

Othello.  He  did  the  first  by  causing  a  fight  which 
was  precipitated  after  he  made  Cassio  drunk,  for 
which  act  Cassio  was  relieved  from  the  office  of 
lieutenant.  He  then  attempts  to  disrupt  the  home 
of  Othello  and  his  method  is  to  make  Othello  jealous. 
This  he  does  by  innuendo  and  suggestion.  He  drops 
the  seed  of  doubt  in  Othello's  mind,  which  fructifies 
and  grows  into  a  bitter  harvest.  His  own  injunction 
to  Othello  contains  a  good  definition  of  jealousy,  the 
deadly  weapon  which  he  put  in  Othello's  hand  for 
self-destruction. 

"O,  beware,  my  lord,  of  jealousy; 
It  is  the  green-ey'd  monster,  which  doth  mack 
The  meat  it  feeds  on:  That  cuckold  lives  in 

bliss 

Who,  certain  of  his  fate,  loves  not  his  wronger; 
But,  O,  what  damned  minutes  tells  he  o'er 
Who    dotes,    yet    doubts,    suspects,    yet 

strongly   loves!" 

Jealousy  always  develops  the  worst  traits  in  a  man's 
character.  It  never  brings  out  the  best.  It  is  the 
occasion  for  the  full  expression  of  the  animal 
human  nature,  and  is  a  propensity  possessed  of 
uncontrolled  injustice  and  insanity.  The  incident 
of  the  handkerchief  secured  from  Desdemona  by 
strategy,  and  used  by  lago  to  evoke  the  doubt  of 
Othello,  ended  in  the  destruction  of  all  the  principal 
characters  in  the  play.  Othello  finds  Desdemona 


OTHELLO  25 

asleep  in  bed.  He  enters  the  chamber  full  of  the 
black  purpose  which  he  had  meditated,  of  putting 
her  to  death.  Seeing  her  asleep,  he  would  not  shed 
her  blood  nor  scar  the  alabaster  whiteness  of  her 
skin.  Kissing  her  for  the  last  time,  he  smothers 
her  to  death.  Cassio  was  brought  in,  after  having 
been  set  upon  by  assassins,  at  the  will  of  lago,  lago 
killing  the  assassins  who  attempted  to  kill  Cassio. 
Certain  letters  were  found  in  Cassio's  pockets  which 
make  the  guilt  of  lago  and  the  innocence  of  Cassio 
clear  beyond  all  doubt,  the  discovery  of  which 
impelled  Othello  to  commit  suicide. 

A  study  of  Othello,  Desdemona,  and  lago  will 
point  the  moral  and  analyze  the  motives  of  the  drama. 
Desdemona  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  most  beautiful 
women. 

"Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 

Spoke  in  her  cheeks  and  so  distinctly  wrought, 

That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought." 

Involved  in  circumstances  from  which  she  could  not 
extricate  herself,  Desdemona  appears  as  the  inno- 
cent victim  of  the  revenge  of  jealousy.  Many  a 
woman  is  the  victim  of  her  own  virtue,  which  must 
be  defended  as  the  snow,  falling  in  its  spotless  white- 
ness, must  protect  itself  against  the  stain  of  the 
mud  and  grime.  Womanhood  is  open  to  suspicion 
by  its  very  purity.  The  saddest  of  all  tragedies  is 
successful  assault  made  by  suspicious  men 


26  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

upon  womanhood.  A  fair  name  is  a  shining  target. 
Desdemona  appears  a  striking  contrast  with  Cleopa- 
tra. The  one  has  the  fascination  of  beauty  and 
chastity,  the  other  of  voluptuous  worldliness  and 
divided  affection.  True,  it  may  be  said  of  Desde- 
mona that  she  made  the  first  mistake  in  marrying 
outside  her  social  province  clandestinely.  But  the 
bitter  fruit  she  took  to  her  lips  can  hardly  be  recorded 
as  the  reward  of  her  folly. 

It  is  usual  among  the  libertines  to  suspect 
women,  but  the  character  of  Desdemona  is  a  rebuke 
to  such  unholy  suspicions.  The  foundation  of 
society  is  Desdemona.  More  than  any  other  charac- 
ter does  she  stand  for  the  unity  and  happiness  of 
mankind .  Upon  her  rests  the  home  and  all  it  involves . 
She  is  the  pillar  of  faith,  and  while  she  may  be  the 
object  of  suspicion,  she  is  to  be  defended  against  the 
lagos  who  would  besmirch  her  character  and  inspire 
the  green-eyed  monster  of  jealousy  in  her  husband. 

Othello  is  remembered  by  the  critics  of  Shakespeare 
as  the  jealous  husband.  Doubtless  he  was  jealous, 
but  there  was  more  than  jealousy  in  his  uncontrolled 
frenzy  toward  Desdemona.  Othello's  love  was 
stronger  than  his  reason.  Many  divorces  are 
caused  by  too  much  love  rather  than  too  little.  A 
great  love  can  only  be  made  safe  in  a  sane  and  judi- 
cial mind.  It  is  a  misfortune  for  a  weak-minded  man 
to  be  possessed  by  an  extraordinary  affection.  The 
probability  is  that  the  affection  will  topple  over  the 
reason.  Love  rests  upon  sense — good  sound  common 


OTHELLO  27 

sense.  This  must  always  be  the  foundation  of  ro- 
mantic love.  The  tumult  in  Othello's  soul  was 
caused  by  the  conflict  between  love  and  honor,  the 
love  which  he  had,  and  the  honor  which  he  wanted 
Desdemona  to  have.  His  was  the  tragedy  of  the 
heart's  disappointment,  grounded  in  suspicions 
suggested  by  circumstances  which,  to  him,  were  as 
logical  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  estimate 
Coleridge  passed,  analyzes  and  explains  the  awful 
storm  in  Othello's  soul.  He  says  "Othello  must  not 
be  conceived  as  a  negro,  but  a  high  and  chivalrous 
Moorish  chief.  Shakespeare  learned  the  spirit  of 
the  character  from  the  Spanish  poetry,  which  was 
prevalent  in  England  in  his  time.  Jealousy  does  not 
strike  me  as  the  point  in  his  passion;  I  take  it  to  be 
rather  an  agony  that  the  creature,  whom  he  had 
believed  angelic,  with  whom  he  had  garnered  up  his 
heart,  and  whom  he  could  not  help  still  loving, 
should  be  proved  impure  and  worthless.  It  was  the 
struggle  not  to  love  her.  It  was  a  moral  indigna- 
tion and  regret  that  virtue  should  so  fail: — 'But  yet 
the  pity  of  it,  lago! — O  lago!  the  pity  of  it,  lago!' 
In  addition  to  this,  his  honor  was  concerned:  lago 
would  not  have  succeeded  but  by  hinting  that  his 
honor  was  compromised.  There  is  no  ferocity  in 
Othello;  his  mind  is  majestic  and  composed.  He 
deliberately  determines  to  die;  and  speaks  his  last 
speech  with  a  view  of  showing  his  attachment  to  the 
Venetian  State,  though  it  had  superceded  him. 
Schiller  has  the  material  Sublime;  to  produce  an 


28  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

effect,  he  sets  you  a  whole  town  on  fire,  and  throws 
infants  with  their  mothers  into  flames,  or  locks  up  a 
father  in  an  old  tower.  But  Shakespeare  drops  a 
handkerchief,  and  the  same  or  greater  effects  follow. 

"Lear  is  the  most  tremendous  effort  of  Shakespeare 
as  a  poet;  Hamlet  as  a  philosopher  or  mediator; 
and  Othello  is  the  union  of  the  two.  There  is  some- 
thing gigantic  and  unformed  in  the  former  two;  but 
in  the  latter,  everything  assumes  its  due  place  and 
proportion,  and  the  whole  mature  powers  of  his 
mind  are  displayed  in  admirable  equilibrium." 

Othello's  estimate  of  himself  is  effectively  given  in 
the  words  spoken  just  before  he  stabs  himself. 

"Soft  you;  a  word  or  two  before  you  go. 

I  have  done  the  state  some  service,  and  they 

know't. 

No  more  of  that.     I  pray  you,  in  your  letters, 
When  you   shall   these   unlucky   deeds   relate, 
Speak  of  me  as  I  am;  nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice:     Then  must  you 

speak 

Of  one  that   loved  not  wisely  but  too  well; 
Of  one  not  easily  jealous,  but,  being  wrought, 
Perplex'd  in  the  extreme;  of  one  whose  hand, 
Like  thf  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe;  of  one  whose  subdued 

eyes, 

Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 


OTHELLO  29 

Their    medicinal   gum.     Set    you    down    this; 
And  say  besides,  that  in  Aleppo  once, 
Where  a  malignant  and  a  turbaned  Turk 
Beat  a  Venetian  and  traduced  the  state, 
I    took    by    the    throat    the    circumcised    dog 
And  smote  him  thus." 

lago  is  Shakespeare's  Devil.  In  the  Garden  of 
Eden  he  is  in  the  form  of  a  serpent.  In  Milton's 
representation,  he  is  a  mocking  fiend,  while  Tintoret- 
to has  painted  him  in  the  guise  of  an  athlete.  He  is 
Goethe's  Mephistopheles  in  Faust,  and  the  Satan  in 
the  wilderness  of  temptation.  This  man  is  always 
clever,  polite,  wilful,  and  dangerous.  lago  is  the 
destroyer  of  character.  In  this  instance  his  method 
is  that  of  suggestion.  Students  of  the  New  Thought 
who  interest  themselves  in  the  occult  and  psycholo- 
gical mysteries,  will  find  in  the  drama  of  Othello 
an  excellent  illustration  of  suggestion's  influence  over 
the  human  mind.  The  trifle  of  the  handkerchief 
light  as  air,  suggests  a  series  of  events  which  ended 
in  the  destruction  of  hope,  happiness,  and  life.  This 
was  all  wrought  by  suggestion.  There  was  no  basis 
in  fact,  whatever,  only  circumstantial  evidence  created 
by  the  perfidy  of  lago  and  used  to  slay  the  innocent, 
lago  is  the  slanderer,  and  no  slanderer  can  enter  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  Slander  is  murder.  The  man 
who  holds  you  up  with  his  pistol  or  shoots  you  is  a 
gentleman  in  comparison  with  the  man  who  will  rob 
you  of  your  reputation  and  destroy  your  character. 


SO  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

lago  destroyed  the  home  of  Othello  by  making 
Othello  destroy  his  wife  and  himself.  He  inspired 
him  to  act  upon  false  premises,  and  lago  furnished 
the  premises.  He  is  the  polite  gossip  who  distills 
poison  in  suspicious  minds,  and  sets  in  motion  cur- 
rents of  thought  which  end  in  death.  Of  all  the  bad 
men  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  lago  is  quite  the  worst. 
He  is  more  subtle  than  Macbeth  or  King  Richard  III. 
His  is  the  crime  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  mind.  He  is 
the  assassinator  of  fair  names,  the  destroyer  of  happy 
homes. 

By  way  of  application,  it  is  observed  that  Shakes- 
peare is  quick  to  destroy  by  death  the  people  of  his 
tragedies.  This  is  quite  in  harmony  with  human 
nature.  It  has  long  been  an  accepted  method  of 
escape  in  domestic  entanglements,  to  use  the  pistol 
and  the  dagger,  in  the  belief  that  death  is  the  solution 
of  domestic  problems.  The  choice  of  the  modern 
world  is  between  death  and  divorce.  Their  popula- 
rity is  about  equally  divided.  Despite  the  almost 
countless  number  of  divorces,  which  in  some  respect 
feed  the  miseries  and  in  others  relieve  the  troubles 
of  society,  the  resort  to  death  is  still  in  vogue.  It  is 
a  poor  expedient  economically  and  morally.  The 
killing  of  Desdemona  doesn't  help  matters.  The 
discovery  of  the  mistake  that  was  made,  is  the  real 
tragedy  of  the  situation.  Suicide  is  not  a  solution 
of  trouble,  and  a  man  who  takes  his  own  life  to  escape 
the  sorrows  of  the  flesh,  but  intensifies  the  grief 
of  others  and  imperils  his  own  soul.  There  is  no 


OTHELLO  31 

philosophy  in  murder,  but  so  popular  is  this  method 
among  the  distressed  classes,  high  and  low,  that  we 
have  long  ago  ceased  to  enumerate  the  tragedies  of 
the  dagger,  the  deadly  poison,  and  the  revolver. 
A  better  philosophy  is  to  settle  our  difficulties  accord- 
ing to  reason,  as  set  forth  in  Christ's  great  injunction 
on  marriage  and  divorce,  recorded  in  the  nine- 
teenth chapter  of  Matthew. 

The  ethics  of  Shakespearean  murders  will  not 
bear  a  close  analysis  of  the  moralist,  but  Shakes- 
peare has  tried  only  to  follow  out  the  consequences 
of  foul  deeds  and  the  awful  effects  of  mistaken 
suspicions.  In  making  a  more  personal  application 
to  those  who  are  starting  out  in  life  as  husband  and 
wife,  let  me  urge  upon  you  the  peril  of  distrust  and 
jealousy  and  to  warn  you  against  the  lagos  who  are 
ever  seeking  to  pull  down  the  structure  of  your  home. 
Living  is  a  fine  art,  and  we  must  be  taught  how  to 
love  without  losing  our  sense,  and  how  to  believe 
without  doubt,  and  how  to  love  without  revenge. 

Marriage  is  fraught  with  such  possibilities  and  perils 
that  it  becomes  us  to  enter  upon  it  thoughtfully, 
sincerely,  and  intelligently.  Intelligent  love  is 
life's  greatest  asset.  Jesus  Christ  has  given  us,  in 
his  injunction  on  the  marriage  relation,  that  what 
God  hath  joined  together,  let  no  lagos  put  asunder. 
The  forces  of  separation  are  in  deadly  conflict  with 
the  forces  of  unity.  The  secret  of  marriage  is  in  the 
moral  union  of  two  souls.  Marriage  is  of  God,  or  it 
is  of  little  strength  and  short  duration. 


32  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

To  the  young  people,  some  of  whom  are  contem- 
plating matrimony,  and  others  who  are  already 
enjoying  it,  I  would  give  the  advice,  keep  clear  of  the 
lagos  and  of  the  green-eyed  monster  of  jealousy. 
In  the  making  of  a  new  home,  a  new  star  glistens 
upon  the  sky.  Enter  upon  this  experience  with  an 
intelligent  regard  for  all  that  makes  home  happy, 
and  with  the  moral  defense  against  the  things  which 
cause  domestic  tragedy.  The  mighty  drama  of 
Othello  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  the  life  of 
the  modern  world,  must  ever  be  an  influential  re- 
minder of  the  Lord's  injunction  to  his  generation, 
that  "What  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man 
put  asunder." 


HAMLET,  A  STUDY  IN  REVENGE, 
DUTY,  AND  DOUBT 

"  'Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord.9  " 
Romans  12:  19. 

ARMED  with  the  passion  of  revenge, 
we  go  forth  to  avenge  ourselves  upon 
the  enemy.  But  vengeance  is  not  the 
property  of  man.  It  is  a  possession  of 
God.  Man  is  incapable  of  using  this  dangerous  thing 
called  vengeance.  Our  rights  end  with  punishment, 
but  vengeance  is  more  than  punishment.  Therefore 
I  do  not  believe  in  capital  punishment — the  arbitrary 
taking  of  life.  There  is  no  discipline  in  killing  an 
offender.  We  have  only  followed  the  abrogated  law 
of  the  old  covenant,  "an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth."  We  have  taken  a  life  for  a  life,  and 
thus  satisfied  our  sense  of  revenge.  Punishment  is 
chastisement, — making  the  soiled  linen  sweet  and 
white  and  pure  by  soap  and  water,  and  divers 
poundings.  Vengeance  such  as  the  apostle  writes  of, 
does  not  belong  to  man.  It  is  the  exclusive  property 
of  God.  "Vengeance  is  mine;  I  will  repay,  saith  the 
Lord."  A  good  illustration  of  the  conflict  which 
sometimes  wages  between  the  desire  for  vengeance 

S3 


34  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

and  the  higher  law  of  honorable  duty,  is  found  in 
Shakespeare's  delineation  of  the  character  of  Hamlet, 
where  is  apparent  emotional  scepticism,  morbid 
forebodings,  the  spirit  of  vengeance,  the  sense  of 
duty,  and  altogether  a  miserable  and  unhappy  state 
of  affairs.  Hamlet  describes  many  unfortunate 
lives,  caught  in  the  mesh  of  circumstances,  and 
incapable  of  solving  the  perplexing  problems  of  life. 

The  facts  involved  in  the  tragedy  are  possibly, 
better  known  than  those  of  any  other  of  Shakespeare's 
tragedies.  Apart  from  Hamlet  the  tragedy  does  not 
make  a  strong  appeal.  It  is  chiefly  remembered  for 
its  brilliant  bits  of  wisdom,  its  noble  eloquence,  and 
the  keen  psychological  study  Shakespeare  makes  of 
the  character  of  Hamlet.  In  the  analysis  made  of 
him,  the  great  master  lays  bare  the  human  heart, 
and  the  careful  student  attends  a  clinic  on  the  heart's 
inmost  emotions. 

The  Queen  of  Denmark,  Gertrude,  becomes  a 
widow  by  the  strangely  sudden  death  of  the  king. 
In  less  than  two  months  she  marries  his  brother 
Claudius.  Both  the  suddenness  of  the  death  and  the 
marriage  greatly  disturb  Hamlet.  In  consequence 
of  his  trouble  he  grew  morbid  and  melancholy.  It 
happens  that  an  apparition  had  been  seen  by  soldiers 
upon  watch  before  the  palace  at  midnight.  It  was 
arranged  that  Hamlet  should  see  this  apparition  for 
himself  and  taking  his  stand  one  night  with  Horatio 
and  Marcellus,  where  the  ghost  appeared,  he  was 
struck  with  fear,  and  so  great  was  the  resemblance 


REVENGE,  DUTY,  AND  DOUBT         35 

to  his  father,  that  he  followed  the  apparition  begging 
for  some  word  of  recognition.  To  make  a  long  story 
short,  the  ghost  related  to  him  how  Claudius,  his 
uncle,  had  murdered  him,  and  appealed  to  Hamlet 
to  avenge  his  death  by  killing  Claudius.  Hamlet's 
feigned  madness  was  explained  by  his  ardent  love  for 
one  Ophelia  to  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  com- 
municating messages  of  love. 

While  he  was  in  this  irresolute  and  disturbed  state 
of  mind,  not  knowing  whether  to  avenge  his  father's 
death,  and  not  quite  sure  of  the  testimony  of  the 
ghost  he  decided  to  put  the  king  and  queen 
through  the  "third  degree,"  as  the  detectives  say. 
A  strolling  band  of  players  came  along,  and  it  was 
arranged  for  them  to  play  a  tragedy  reproducing  the 
facts  of  the  tragedy  as  reported  by  the  ghost.  The 
king  and  queen  were  invited  to  be  present.  So  real 
was  the  representation  that  the  king  excused  himself 
on  the  ground  of  illness.  This  incident  was  followed 
by  an  interview  between  Hamlet  and  his  mother, 
during  which  Hamlet  observes  somebody  behind  the 
curtains,  and  thinking  it  was  Claudius,  thrusts  him 
with  his  sword.  It  so  happens,  Pelonius,  father  of 
Ophelia,  was  there,  and  he  was  stabbed  to  death,  for 
which  act  Hamlet  was  sent  out  of  the  country,  but 
owing  to  a  strange  series  of  circumstances  returned 
in  time  to  attend  Ophelia's  funeral,  and  to  engage  in 
a  general  slaughter  of  about  everybody  of  importance 
in  the  play. 


36  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

"Let    four    captains 

Bear  Hamlet,  like  a  soldier,  to  the  stage; 
For  he  was  likely,  had  he  been  put  on, 
To  have  proved  most  royally:  and,  for  his 

passage, 

The  soldiers'  music  and  the  rites  of  war 
Speak  loudly  for  him. 
Take  up  the  bodies:  such  a  sight  as  this 
Becomes  the  field,  but  here  shows  much 

amiss 
Go,  bid  the  soldiers  shoot." 

Hamlet's  troubles,  like  those  of  many  people, 
began  at  home.  His  father  was  murdered  and  his 
mother  disgraced  the  family  name  by  the  indiscretion 
of  an  early  marriage.  There  is  an  explosive  element 
in  domestic  affairs  which  works  ruin,  once  the  fire 
reaches  the  powder. 

Again,  the  advent  of  the  ghost  into  Hamlet's  life, 
influenced  his  artistic  temperament  and  disarranged 
his  mind.  Ghosts  are  poor  friends.  They  are  not 
safe  counselors.  The  two  worlds  are  closely  related 
and  influence  each  other,  and  the  spiritual  life  is  as 
real  as  the  human  life  seen  by  our  eyes.  But  keep 
away  from  ghosts.  Beware  of  buying  stocks  or 
dealing  in  real  estate  at  the  advice  of  the  spirits  of 
your  dead  ancestors,  and  when  they  rise  up  and  insist 
that  you  wreak  vengeance  on  their  enemies — beware! 

The  character  of  Hamlet  is  so  universal  in  its  wide 
range  of  feeling  and  motive,  that  we  may  profitably 


REVENGE,  DUTY,  AND  DOUBT    37 

give  it  special  consideration.  His  character  is 
marked  by  irresolution  and  hesitancy,  which  stamp 
him  as  uncertain,  and  weak.  There  is  an  indefinite- 
ness  about  him  which  reaches  a  point  of  fascination 
at  times.  He  has  laid  upon  him  a  duty  which  he  has 
not  the  strength  to  execute.  He  is  the  man  who  is 
under  a  cross  which  is  too  heavy  for  him,  who  has 
standards  but  not  power,  who  would  do  what  ought 
to  be  done,  but  is  incapable  of  doing  it.  In  the 
seventh  chapter  of  Romans,  Paul  appears,  just  for  a 
moment  upon  the  stage,  as  a  disarranged,  morbid 
and  melancholy  Hamlet,  assured  that  whenever  he 
would  do  good  evil  is  present  with  him.  Goethe 
says :  "It  is  clear  to  me  that  Shakepseare's  intention 
was  to  exhibit  the  effects  of  a  great  action  imposed  as 
a  duty  upon  a  mind  too  feeble  for  its  accomplish- 
ment." Certainly  we  have  an  example  of  indecision, 
but  the  indecision  as  in  most  of  us,  is  in  our  inability 
to  assert  the  resolution.  It  is  fundamental  weakness 
in  the  machinery  of  power  behind  the  decision  of  the 
mind.  It  is  easy  to  make  resolutions,  but  how  hard 
it  is  to  execute  them.  Hamlet  was  like  a  man  who 
loads  his  gun  to  the  muzzle  with  shot,  but  behind  the 
shot  there  is  little  or  no  powder.  Every  New  Year's 
day  we  pour  in  the  rattling  shot  of  resolution — but 
the  gun  does  not  always  go  off,  because  there  is  not 
sufficient  will  power,  that  is,  character,  to  expel  it. 
Again,  this  tragedy  has  been  called  "a  tragedy  of 
thought."  The  mind's  war  is  uncovered.  The 
brain's  battle-field  is  laid  bare.  The  torments  of 


88  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

doubt  are  felt  in  the  sublime  soliloquy,  and  seen  in  the 
melancholic  action  of  the  Prince.  "Prometheus 
and  Hamlet  are  two  lovers,"  says  Hugo,  "laid  bare 
before  us;  blood  flows  from  the  one,  doubt  from  the 
other."  Hamlet's  doubt  is  against  life,  and  this  is 
the  most  deadly  species  of  scepticism.  When  you  are 
surrounded  by  conditions  over  which  you  have  no 
control,  when  walled  in  by  impenetrable  troubles, 
and  made  captive  by  unexplained  sorrows  and 
disappointments,  you  are  in  the  position  of  Hamlet 
when  he  spoke  of  this  weary,  and  unintelligible 
world—" 

"Oh  cursed  spite,   that  I  was  ever  sent 

To  set  it  right." 

When  a  man's  doubt  is  against  the  whole  scheme  of 
things  as  he  sees  it,  when  it  embitters  him  against  life 
itself,  then  is  his  doubt  more  destructive  than  the 
unanswered  question  raised  by  a  book  or  a  system  or  a 
creed. 

"To  be,  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question: — 
Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind,  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune, 
Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 
And  by  opposing  end  them?  To  die,  to 

sleep : — 

No  more;  and  by  a  sleep,  to  say  we  end 
The  heart-ache  and  the  thousand  natural 
shocks 


REVENGE,  DUTY,  AND  DOUBT        39 

That  flesh  is  heir  to,  'tis  a  consummation 
Devoutly  to  be  wish'd.  To  die,  to  sleep; 
To  sleep:  perchance  to  dream:  ay,  there's 

the  rub; 
For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may 

come 

When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil, 
Must  give  us  pause:  there's  the  respect 
That  makes  calamity  of  so  long  life; 
For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of 

time, 

The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  con- 
tumely, 

The  pangs  of  despised  love,  the  law's  delay, 
The  insolence  of  office  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin?  who  would  fardels  bear, 
To  grunt  and  sweat  under  a  weary  life, 
But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death, 
The  undiscover'd  country  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveler  returns,  puzzles  the  will 
And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of? 
Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all; 
And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought, 
And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment, 
With  this  regard,  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action." 


40  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

"Hamlet,  the  tragedy  of  doubt,"  says  Victor  Hugo, 
"stands  in  the  centre  of  all  his  works.  Geniuses  of 
the  first  rank  have  the  peculiarity  that  each  creates 
a  specimen  of  humanity.  Each  gives  to  humanity 
its  own  image,  one  a  laughing  one,  another  a  weeping 
one,  another  again  a  thoughtful  one.  The  last  is  the 
grandest.  Plautus  laughs  and  gives  mankind  an 
Amphitryo,  Rabelais  laughs  and  gives  a  Gargantua, 
Cervantes  laughs  and  gives  a  Don  Quixote,  Beau- 
marchais  laughs  and  gives  a  Figaro;  Moliere  weeps 
and  gives  an  Alceste;  Shakespeare  meditates  and 
gives  a  Hamlet;  Aeschylus  meditates  and  gives  a 
Prometheus.  The  former  are  great;  Aeschylus  and 
Shakespeare  are  immeasurably  so." 

And  now  a  word  about  Hamlet's  insanity.  For 
many  years  this  has  been  a  subject  of  discussion. 
The  preponderance  of  opinion  favors  the  idea  that 
Hamlet's  insanity  never  reached  the  point  of  irre- 
sponsibility, and  that  he  feigned  madness.  "To  pre- 
tend madness  is  the  secret  of  the  wise,"  says  Oceanus 
to  Prometheus.  Gloster's  son  in  Lear  feigns  madness, 
and  when  a  man  would  assassinate  an  American  presi- 
dent or  European  sovereign  in  the  spirit  of  revenge, 
madness  becomes  a  convenient  excuse  for  the  deed. 
Coleridge  says,  "If  it  be  asked,  is  Hamlet  really  mad: 
or  for  what  purpose  does  he  assume  madness?  We 
reply  that  he  assumes  madness  to  conceal  from 
himself  and  others  his  real  distemper.  Mad  he 
certainly  is  not,  in  the  sense  that  Lear  and  Ophelia 
are  mad."  Irresolution,  doubt,  hesitation,  and  mor- 


REVENGE,  DUTY,  AND  DOUBT    41 

bidness  resulted  in  a  mistaken  and  hasty  action — the 
murder  of  the  wrong  man! 

Now  let  us  take  up  the  whole  matter  of  revenge 
and  discuss  it  on  its  moral  merits  in  the  light  of  the 
national  and  individual  life.  Hamlet  is  the  nation. 
War  for  thousands  of  years  has,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions, been  waged  on  the  ground  of  vengeance.  War 
is  the  chief  inheritance  of  savagery.  It  is  a  relic 
of  the  savage,  when  the  early  barbarian  gripped 
his  club,  and  went  forth  to  flay  his  enemy.  We 
call  it  patriotism.  It  is  not  patriotism,  it  is  savagery. 
The  nations  are  still  attached  to  the  earth, 
sphinx-like  to  the  lower  passions,  and  while 
the  head  may  be  among  the  stars,  the  body  is  fastened 
to  the  sands.  The  great  Tolstoi  would  have  liberated 
the  nations  from  the  barbarism  of  the  savage,  but 
he  died  alone  in  the  hut,  surrounded  with  armies 
which  were  in  singular  contrast  to  Christianity. 

"Yes,   Germany  is  Hamlet,  too? 

Upon   her  ramparts   every   night 
There  stalks  in  silence,  grim  and  slow, 

Her  buried  freedom's  steel-clad  spirit, 
Beck'ning  the  warders  watching  there, 

And  to  the  shrinking  doubter  saying : 
They've  drop't  fell  poison  in  mine  ear 

Draw  thou  the  sword,  no  more  delay." 

America  has  been  Hamlet.  What  was  the  war 
with  Spain  but  a  war  of  vengeance?  For  some  days 


42  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

after  the  Maine  was  sunk,  President  McKinley  was 
the  national  Hamlet  personified,  hesitating  between 
duty  and  revenge,  pausing  between  the  appeal  of 
the  ghosts  of  the  sailors,  and  the  dogs  of  war,  let 
loose  by  the  American  newspapers,  and  barking 
through  the  halls  of  congress, — solemnly  paused  be- 
tween duty  and  revenge,  and  at  length,  inevitably 
it  would  seem,  surrendered  to  the  popular  cry  for 
vengeance — and  stabbed  Polonius  behind  the  curtain ! 

What  Hamlets  read  these  words!  Hamlets  who 
have  been  inspired  to  wreak  vengeance,  for  real  or 
imaginary  wrongs.  It  requires  a  greater  man  not 
to  strike,  than  to  strike,  not  to  pull  the  trigger,  than 
to  shoot.  The  soft  answer  is  harder  to  give  than  the 
sulphurous  and  fiery  reply  which  burns  and  destroys. 
Almost  any  man  likes  to  strike  back.  The  nation 
does.  The  boy  does,  and  sometimes  in  self  defense, 
striking  back  is  necessary.  The  first  impulse  of 
Hamlet  is  to  avenge  his  father's  murder.  It  is 
your  impulse.  A  man  has  done  you  a  wrong — do 
him  two  wrongs.  A  man  has  struck  you  once,  strike 
him  a  dozen  times.  A  negro  has  committed  a  crime 
— kill  him,  burn  him,  hang  him  to  a  tree,  riddle  him 
with  bullets,  and  then  call  yourselves  gentlemen  of 
honor.  No — "Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay,  saith 
the  Lord." 

I  give  then,  the  following  advice  to  the  Hamlets: 
First :  Be  sure  you  are  right — then  act.  Such  is  the 
point  in  the  wise  injunction  of  Davy  Crockett.  "Be 
sure  you  are  right,  then  go  ahead/'  Many  of  our 


REVENGE,  DUTY,  AND  DOUBT         43 

troubles  would  be  avoided  could  we  courageously 
obey  this  bit  of  wisdom.  To  know  what  is  right — 
the  will  of  God,  to  find  it,  as  the  Indian  finds  and 
follows  the  trail,  is  to  find  a  working  doctrine  of 
practical  life,  that  would  defend  us  against  many 
tragedies.  Having  found  the  right,  then  follow  it 
against  all  odds.  The  hesitant,  vacillating,  uncertain 
man  never  realizes  his  purpose  because  he  never 
knows  when  and  where  to  strike  his  blow. 
Second:  God  punishes — 

"The  mills  of  the  gods  grind  slowly, 
But  grind  they  exceeding  fine." 

The  low  rumble  and  roar  of  the  mighty  stones  is 
the  voice  of  history.  God  rules.  X)h,  little,  furious, 
angered  man,  do  not  strive  to  pull  down  from  above 
the  thunderbolts  of  God !  They  do  not  belong  to  you. 
Shall  infants  play  with  pistols,  and  children  with  fire? 
You  do  not  know  how  to  use  the  awful  power  of 
vengeance.  That  can  be  used  alone  by  God.  But 
how  we  strive  to  break  through  the  limitations  and 
seize  the  vengeance  of  God.  We  have  not  the 
wisdom,  the  forebearance,  the  justice,  nor  the  mercy 
to  wreak  vengeance.  Do  not  worry,  God  will  give 
every  man  what  he  deserves.  The  universe  is 
framed  on  that  unbroken  law.  It  does  not  belong  to 
us  to  deal  out  hell  to  people.  God  will  do  that. 
Ours  is  a  different  function.  It  does  not  belong  to 
us  to  rule  the  universe.  Certain  sacred  attributes 


44  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

are  not  for  us  to  own.  The  child  may  play  with  the 
candy  gun,  but  one  higher,  who  knows  the  laws  of 
warfare,  points  and  fires  the  engine  of  steel  and  fire. 
Every  man  will  ultimately  get  his  deserts.  There 
must  somewhere,  somehow  be  a  clearing  house  of 
eternal  justice,  here  or  hereafter. 

The  apostle's  advice  is  better  than  the  ghost's 
appeal  to  Hamlet.  Despite  the  fact  that  we  have 
within  us  the  spirit  of  revenge,  the  gospel  of  the  New 
Testament  is  the  doctrine  for  the  new  age.  Here 
we  have  not  the  sword,  but  the  hot  coals,  not  revenge, 
but  kindness,  the  soft  answer  which  turns  away 
wrath,  as  the  hot  sun  turns  away  the  icicles,  and 
melts  them  to  tears.  What  a  fine  art  is  the  use  of  the 
hot  coals,  and  how  few  there  be,  capable  of  rising  up 
high  enough  in  the  scale  of  religion  to  use  them. 
But  put  them  on!  Lay  them  on  the  heads  of  your 
enemies,  and  thus  fulfil  the  law  of  God.  Coals  of 
fire  are  invested  with  a  gospel  which  is  preached  but 
not  practised.  Some  day  the  nations  will  use  them, 
and  Christians  will  reach  each  others'  hearts  by  the 
burning,  searching  spirit  of  the  Christ.  How  beauti- 
ful these  words:  "Therefore  if  thine  enemy  hunger, 
feed  him;  if  he  thirst,  give  him  to  drink;  for  in  so 
doing  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head.  Be 
not  overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good." 


KING    LEAR— FILIAL    INGRATITUDE 

"Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  as  the  Lord  thy 
God  hath  commanded  thee;  that  thy  days  may  be  pro- 
longed, and  that  it  may  go  well  with  thee,  in  the  land 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee."  Deut.  5:  16. 

THE  decalogue  is  the  moral  frame  work  of 
civilization.     It  is  the  ethical  skeleton  of 
the  Shakespearean  tragedies.     As  the  steel 
and  stone  outline  of  the  building  is  the 
bony  skeleton  on  which  is  put  the  flesh  of  the  perfect 
structure,  so  the  ten  commandments  furnish  the  basal 
truths  of  the  higher  life  and   thought  of  mankind. 
He  who  wrote  this  injunction  of  filial  respect  for  par- 
ents, was  himself  a  castaway,  having  been  rescued 
as  a  child  from  the  River  Nile  by  Pharoah's  daugh- 
ter.    The  orphan  is  the  occasion  for  filial  gratitude. 
This  precept  is  associated  with  a  promise :  "that  thy 
days  may  be  prolonged,   and  that  it  may  go  well 
with  thee,  in  the    land  which    the    Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee." 

Among  the  influential  relations  of  life  is  that  of 
child  and  parent.  Surely  the  Hebrew  household 
was  the  model  illustration  of  domestic  faithfulness. 
The  child's  honorable  respect  for  his  father  and 
mother  was  one  of  the  Jewish  ideals  which  con- 

45 


46  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

fessedly  modern  Jews  have  not    perceptibly    low- 
ered.    The    perpetuity  of    this    ideal    among    the 
people  of  our  times  is  one  of  the  safeguards  of  our 
national  life.     Once   the   filial   spirit   declines,   the 
home  will  be  shattered.     The  story  of  King  Lear 
as/;  given    in  Shakespeare's  tragedy  is  a  dramatic 
consideration  of  filial  ingratitude.      King  Lear   of 
Brittain,  had  three  daughters,   Goneril,  wife  to  the 
Duke  of  Albany;  Regan,  wife  to  the  Duke  of  Corn- 
wall, and  Cordelia  whose  hand  was  sought  by  the 
King  of  France  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.     The 
worn  out  king,  at  the  close  of  his  life,  called  his 
children  to  him  and  asked  how  much  they  loved  him. 
Goneril,   the  eldest,   could  not  find  words   strong 
enough  to  tell  her  love.     Regan,  the  hollow-minded 
sister,  was  even  more  profuse  in  her  declarations  of 
affection,  while  Cordelia,  whom  he  called  his  joy, 
said  she  loved  him  according  to  her  duty,  neither 
more  nor  less,  at  which  the  king  was  shocked.     This 
led  to  a  frank  talk,  during  which  Lear  lost  his  temper 
and  determined  to  give  his  property  to  the  two  daugh- 
ters who  were  most  lavish  in  their  expressions  of 
love.     The  Earl  of  Kent  standing  by  attempted  to 
speak  a  good  word  for  Cordelia,  but  he,  on  the  pain 
of  death,  was  commanded  to  desist,  which  Kent 
refusing  to  do,  led  to  his  banishment  from  the  country. 
This    Kent    disguised    himself    and    returned    and 
became  Lear's  fastest  but  unknown  friend,  and  in 
more  than  one  respect  is  the  greatest  character  in  the 
drama.     The  King  of  France  and  Duke  of  Burgundy 


KING  LEAR  47 

were  called  upon  to  hear  what  Lear  had  to  say  to 
Cordelia,  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  refused  to 
marry  such  an  ungrateful  daughter,  while  the  King 
of  France  willingly  accepted  her.  King  Lear  now 
attempts  to  live  with  his  two  hypocritical  daughters. 
This  was  a  failure.  He  is  driven  from  one  to  the 
other  and  at  last  banished  by  the  ingratitude  of  both, 
to  the  open  field  around  Dover.  Here  he  loses  his 
mind  and  fancies  himself  again  a  King  and  puts  a 
crown  of  dry  grass  and  burdock  upon  his  head.  The 
picture  of  the  storm  which  beats  upon  him  resembles 
the  thunder  storm  in  Job.  The  elements  are  so  used 
to  poetically  describe  the  volcanic  emotions  of  the  old 
man's  soul  as  he  rages  in  splendid  defiance  of  his 
ungrateful  daughters  and  the  fury  of  the  storm. 
Cordelia  invades  the  kingdom  of  her  father  and 
proves  to  be  the  faithful  daughter  of  the  three.  The 
meeting  between  father  and  daughter  is  tenderly 
drawn, — he  with  his  half  crazed  brain,  putting  his 
hands  upon  the  cheeks  of  his  affectionate  daughter 
who  tries  to  kiss  away  her  sisters'  unkindness.  Cor- 
delia was  imprisoned  during  which  time  she  prob- 
ably committed  suicide.  The  daughters  untrue  to 
their  father,  were  untrue  to  their  husbands  and 
became  involved  in  a  scandal  with  the  bastard  son  of 
Gloster.  King  Lear  did  not  long  survive  Cordelia. 

Shelly  says  that  King  Lear  is  the  greatest  drama 
in  existence,  but  this  has  been  said  of  practically  all 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Keats  writes  that  it  portrays 
the  fierce  dispute  between  damnation  and  impas- 


48  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

sioned  clay.  What  are  some  of  the  lessons  to  be 
drawn  from  this  drama  of  everyday  life? 

First:  Many  a  home  is  wrecked  by  property. 
Once  members  of  a  family  become  involved  in  money 
obligations,  division  follows.  If  you  would  keep  on 
good  terms  with  your  own  household,  keep  out  of 
money  entanglements.  Many  a  home  has  been 
shipwrecked  on  the  rocks  of  riches.  The  division 
of  property  will  root  up  years  of  domestic  happiness. 
Many  a  home  is  divided  after  years  of  unity  and 
peace  by  the  animosity  which  is  caused  by  the 
distribution  of  a  fortune.  The  two  ungrateful 
daughters  thought  more  of  their  father's  kingdoms 
than  they  did  of  their  father.  Having  secured 
these  they  rejected  him.  This  is  an  old  story, 
repeated  daily — the  filial  ingratitude  of  children 
who  pretend  to  love  their  parents. 

Second:  The  dependence  of  old  age.  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  lived  his  life  and  is  now  dependent  upon 
his  children.  We  are  twice  children  and  the  depen- 
dence at  both  ends  of  life  is  pathetic.  That  it  is  a 
tax  on  filial  piety  is  beyond  question.  The  rejec- 
tion of  old  parents  is  not  the  least  of  the  domestic 
crimes.  Some  people  who  are  very  emphatic  in  their 
loyalty  to  certain  ideals  have  no  hesitation  in  violat- 
ing the  commandment  "Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother."  They  will  not  steal,  nor  murder,  nor  com- 
mit adultery,  but  they  will,  with  impunity,  turn 
their  aged  parents  out  of  doors.  Children  are 
under  moral  bonds  to  support  their  dependent  par- 


KING  LEAR  49 

ents.  I  know  how  hard  for  some  to  make 
sacrifices  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  old  father's  door, 
but  it  is  a  rewarding  service.  We  all  know  faithful 
Cordelias  who  might  shine  in  society  and  prosper  in 
a  professional  career,  or  a  home  of  their  own,  but 
because  of  their  aged  parents,  sacrifice  these  things 
and  honor  their  father  and  their  mother.  These  are 
among  the  noblest  types  of  womanhood.  They 
live  under  the  stress  and  care  of  helpless  parentage 
and  no  doubt  their  filial  honor  is  often  tested  to  the 
extreme,  since  old  people  may  be  very  agreeable 
or  exceeding  disagreeable.  The  picture  of  King  Lear 
going  from  home  to  home  and  knocking  for  admis- 
sion in  public  institutions,  is  one  of  the  sad  dramas 
of  our  modern  life.  Here  we  have  the  consequences 
of  filial  ingratitude.  Shakespeare  is  never  so  suggest- 
ive or  effective  as  when  he  writes  of  consequences. 
His  tragedies  inevitably  lead  to  retributive  results. 
The  deeper  meaning  of  King  Lear  indicates  these 
tragical  consequences.  Beneath  the  surface  condi- 
tions of  our  domestic  We  are  these  distressing  results. 
Among  them  is  a  divided  family.  This  in  itself 
is  tragical.  Families  were  never  meant  to  be 
divided.  There  are  some  things  which  we  can 
think  of  only  in  terms  of  unity  and  solidarity.  Once 
they  are  severed,  they  cease  to  be.  The  family  is 
such  an  agency.  It  is  a  great  misfortune  for  a  home 
to  be  cut  asunder  by  a  slight  difference  of  opinion 
or  some  serious  infraction  of  moral  obligation. 
The  scattered  family  of  Lear  in  itself  is  sufficient  to 


50  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

wring  sympathy  from  our  hearts.  Every  influence 
which  makes  for  such  a  division  is  antagonistic  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  nation  and  of  society.  Gon- 
eril  and  Regan  are  on  one  side,  and  Cordelia,  shining 
like  a  soft  pure  star  through  a  cloud  on  the  other  side. 

Another  lesson  is  that  daughters  who  are  untrue  to 
their  fathers  may  not  be  safely  trusted  as  wives. 
Among  the  measurements  of  womanhood  is  the  filial 
relation.  The  bad  daughter  seldom  makes  a  good 
wife.  The  children  who  are  untrue  to  their  parents 
will  probably  not  be  faithful  to  their  wives  and 
husbands.  Show  me  a  daughter  who  is  not  true  to 
her  father  and  I  will  point  you  to  a  woman  who  will 
not  make  a  good  wife.  The  filial  relation  is  an 
indication  of  character.  It  is  a  test  of  the  virtues  of 
the  woman.  It  is  not  a  surprise  then  that  these  two 
girls  who  were  so  untrue  to  Lear  were  unfaithful  to 
their  husbands.  It  is  the  true  daughter  who  will 
make  a  true  wife.  There  is  no  better  commendation 
for  a  young  man  as  a  husband  than  that  he  is  true  to 
his  mother  and  his  father.  No  young  woman  can 
go  far  astray  in  selecting  such  a  young  man  for  a 
husband.  The  same  is  true  of  a  daughter. 

The  insanity  of  King  Lear  gives  Shakespeare  an 
opportunity  for  a  powerful  delineation  of  the  dis- 
turbed soul.  His  description  is  like  a  storm  at  sea. 
Whatever  question  may  be  raised  as  to  the  insanity 
of  Hamlet,  here  we  have  an  unquestioned  form  of 
mental  disturbance  in  Lear.  Insanity  is  worse  than 
death.  It  is  the  mind  confined  in  the  living 


KING  LEAR  51 

tomb  of  the  body.  The  fall  of  a  great  mind  unsettled 
by  domestic  troubles  is  like  the  shattering  of  a  great 
tower  in  an  earthquake,  when  the  bricks  rattle  in  the 
street  and  the  masonry  of  years  is  destroyed. 

"Blow,  winds,  and  crack  your  cheeks!  rage! 

blow! 

You  cataracts  and  hurricanes,  spout 
Till  you  have  drenched  our  steeples,  drowned 

the  cocks! 

You  sulphurous  and  thought-executing  fires, 
Vaunt-couriers  to  oak-cleaving  thunderbolts, 
Singe  my  white  head!  And  thou,  all-shaking 

thunder, 

Smite   flat   the   thick   rotundity    o'  the   world! 
Crack  nature's  moulds,  all  germens  spill  at  once, 
That  make  ingrateful  man! 

Rumble    thy    bellyful!     Spit,    fire!    spout, 
Nor  rain,  wind,  thunder,  fire,  are  my  daughters: 
I  tax  not  you,  you  elements,  with  unkindness; 
I  never  gave  you  kingdom,  call'd  you  children, 
You  owe  me  no  subscription:  then  let  fall 
Your  horrible  pleasure;  here  I  stand,  your  slave, 
A  poor,  infirm,  weak,  and  despised  old  man: 
But  yet  I  call  you  servile  ministers, 
That  have  with  two  pernicious  daughters  join'd 
Your   high-engender'd   battles   'gainst   a   head 
So  old  and  white  as  this.     O !  O !  'tis  foul !" 


52  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

We  are  grateful  for  this  fool  who  keeps  with  his 
master  for  a  while  and  gives  him  the  comfort  of  his 
presence.  It  is  significant  too,  that  Lear  refers  to 
the  good  dogs  which  he  once  owned,  reminding  us  of 
the  dog  in  Rip  Van  Winkle,  who  was  such  a  good 
friend  to  his  master.  Dying  men  clutch  at  straws  and 
many  a  man  when  he  lets  loose  of  life  and  its  old 
associates  finds  comfort  in  a  hut,  and  friendship  in  a 
dog,  and  help  in  a  crazy  fool.  As  we  draw  near  to 
this  powerful  figure  which  is  beyond  the  genius  of 
the  stage  we  come  into  the  atmosphere  of  the  Prome- 
theus of  Aeschylus  and  hear  the  ravings  of  the  Titan 
upon  the  Caucassian  rocks. 

King  Lear  has  been  criticised  because  of  his  foolish 
disposition  of  his  kingdom  and  his  sentimental 
attitude  to  his  children,  a  criticism  which  has  some 
ground  of  justice.  There  are  two  aspects  of  old  age 
involved  in  the  personality  of  Lear.  One  should 
act  as  a  warning  to  those  who  are  sentimentally 
inclined  as  the  years  go  on.  From  one  viewpoint 
Lear  is  the  biggest  fool  in  the  drama.  His  foolishness 
consists  of  follies  and  dangers  sentimentally  touching 
the  love  of  his  children.  It  was  this  folly  that  caused 
the  death  of  Cordelia.  Blessed  is  the  man  who  as 
he  grows  old  maintains  his  mental  balance  and  lives 
sanely.  We  should  all  pray  to  be  spared  from  the 
follies  of  old  age.  Old  people  often  do  very  foolish 
things.  It  is  a  perilous  time  mentally.  The  path 
of  old  age  often  leads  along  dangerous  heights.  The 
action  of  Lear  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  tragedy 


KING  LEAR  53 

anticipates  the  insanity  which  ensues.  He  did  not 
say  or  do  many  wise  things,  which  by  the  way,  is  no 
excuse  for  ill  treatment.  We  are  under  obligation  to 
take  care  of  our  parents  whatever  they  may  be,  or  do. 
I  know  there  are  two  sides  to  this  question.  Some- 
times children  are  rejected  by  their  parents;  again 
parents  are  rejected  by  their  children.  To  you  who 
are  growing  old  let  me  warn  you  with  this  hint:  do 
not  act  in  such  a  manner  as  to  alienate  the  children 
who  now  respect  and  love  you.  Be  a  Cordelia. 

Among  the  strong  domestic  supports  is  the  faithful 
daughter  who  holds  loyally  to  her  parents.  Cordelia 
may  not  be  the  strongest  of  Shakespeare's  women,  but 
she  is  surely  one  of  the  faithful,  marked  by  allegiance 
to  her  father.  Life  is  conditioned  by  accomplish- 
ments and  parts,  but  more  by  relationships.  No 
violation  of  sacred  relationships  can  be  atoned  by 
intellectual  attainments.  Great  and  good  daughters 
are  superior  to  great  and  bad  actresses  or  artists,  or 
authoresses.  Better  a  faithful  daughter  in  poverty 
than  a  faithless  society  woman  in  her  automobile. 
Honor  thy  parents.  This  is  an  old  pillar  precept 
upon  which  stands  the  heavy  weight  of  the  world's 
civilization.  Any  movement  that  shifts  this 
precept  tends  to  disturb  the  moral  order  of  mankind. 
It  is  followed  by  a  promise  as  rich  and  full  and  sweet, 
as  any  promise  given  to  human  faithfulness:  "that 
thy  days  may  be  prolonged  and  that  it  may  go  well 
with  thee  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth 
thee." 


54  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

The  old  folks  at  home  are  to  be  included  in  life's 
reckoning  and  account.  They  may  be  left  like 
wrecks  along  life's  shore,  but  they  cannot  safely 
be  either  forgotten  nor  neglected.  When  men  and 
women  forget  their  parents,  then  does  the  nation 
begin  its  downward  course.  Here  in  the  West,  on 
the  outer  rim  of  the  continent,  whither  thousands 
of  young  people  have  come  in  the  crusade  of  wealth, 
the  ghost  of  King  Lear  stalks  through  the  crowded 
streets  of  the  cities,  the  ripened  fields  of  the  ranch, 
and  pauses  by  the  gold  mines  of  the  hills.  King  Lear 
seeks,  often  in  vain,  for  the  children  who  have  mys- 
teriously disappeared  from  Glasgow,  London,  and 
New  York.  In  some  little  country  home  far  away, 
he  waits  for  a  letter  on  Christmas  day,  and  sits  in  the 
sunset  glow  hoping  for  a  sign  of  filial  respect.  Young 
man,  honor  your  parents.  You  may  succeed  in 
other  things,  but  do  not  allow  your  life  to  be  a  filial 
failure.  Young  woman,  honor  your  father.  Remem- 
ber Lear.  You  will  never  meet  a  man  who  will  be 
nearer  to  you  than  your  father.  Sit  down  now  and 
send  a  message  of  love  to  the  old  folks  at  home. 
Some  day  you  will  receive  a  message  that  will  smite 
you  as  lightning,  and  make  your  soul  tremble  with 
the  memory  of  "the  days  that  are  no  more,"  and 
this  is  the  message:  "King  Lear  is  dead." 


THE  ASPIC  IN  THE  BASKET  OF  FIGS,  OR 
ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 

"The  Wages  of  sin  is  death,  but  the  gift  of  God  is 
eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  Rom. 
6:  23. 

PAUL  and  Shakespeare  deal  with  Rome — 
the  one  in  the  letter  to  the  Romans,  the 
other  in  his  tragedy  "Antony  and  Cleopa- 
tra."     The    apostle    makes  a  singularly 
suggestive  comparison  in  the  passage  taken  from  the 
sixth  chapter  of  Romans.     Sin  is  thought  of  as  a 
workman    going    out    to    earn    a  wage.      It  is    a 
service  rewarded  with  death.     Eternal  life  is  an  un- 
merited gift  of  God,  unearned  by  works,  a  free  and 
gracious  gift  through  Jesus  Christ. 

In  this  little  word  "sin"  is  a  world  of  meaning.  It 
is  a  small  term  but  an  ocean  in  signification.  No 
ship  of  thought  has  crossed  it  from  shore  to  shore, 
no  plummet  ever  reached  the  bottom  of  this  sound- 
less sea.  Sin  is  the  cause  of  life's  troubles.  The 
mind  of  man  has  tried  in  vain  to  understand  the 
mystery  of  sin,  but  has  been  baffled,  and  the  origin, 
and  nature  of  evil  are  as  completely  shrouded  today 
as  in  the  beginning. 

Paul  tells  us  its  penalty  is  death,  physical   and 

65 


56  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

spiritual.  Let  us  not  over-emphasize  physical 
death,  which  is  not  the  vital  thing.  The  death 
of  our  bodies  is  not  a  great  catastrophe.  The 
death  of  the  spiritual  life  is  the  true  tragedy.  The 
apostle  thrusts  below  the  physical  change.  He 
opens  the  perils  of  spiritual  death.  I  know  how 
unwelcome  such  a  consideration  is,  and  how  unin- 
viting such  a  theme,  but  I  am  sensible,  too  of  the 
need  of  a  thought  to  awaken  us  from  the  deadly 
lethargy  of  a  materialistic,  and  self-satisfied  age. 

Where  shall  we  find  a  fit  illustration  of  this 
truth  that  sin's  penalty  is  death?  The  morning 
paper  brings  to  us  the  daily  assurance  of  its 
soundness  and  the  repetition  of  its  reality  in  the  life 
of  the  people.  Shakespeare  has  given  us  a  striking 
example  of  the  penalty  paid  to  sin  by  natural  law  in 
the  spiritual  world.  Plutarch  classified  the  facts  of 
history,  and  Shakespeare  has  invested  these  facts 
with  his  illuminating  genius,  while  Dry  den  in  his  "All 
for  Love,"  has  reflected  the  greater  grandeur  of  the 
English  master.  Johnson  says,  "This  play  keeps 
curiosity  always  busy,  and  the  passions  always 
interested.  The  continual  hurry  of  the  action,  the 
variety  of  incidents,  and  the  quick  succession  of  one 
personage  to  another,  call  the  mind  forward  without 
intermission  from  the  first  act  to  the  last." 

It  is  right  to  say,  not  in  apology,  but  explanation, 
that  the  scenes  herein  painted  are  laid  in  an  age  of 
paganism.  The  two  conspicuous  characters  so 
powerfully  delineated,  lived  in  an  age  when  religion 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  57 

was  well  nigh  driven  from  the  earth,  but  the  deep 
darkness  of  an  unbroken  cloud  of  heathenism  was 
beginning  to  break  away  under  the  glimmering  dawn 
of  the  Christianity  of  Christ. 

The  history  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  is  not  a 
drama,  nor  a  catastrophe,  but  a  tragedy.  It  ends  in 
death.  Continuous  sin  is  paid  in  the  cash  value  of 
destruction.  The  theology  of  Paul  is  asserted  in 
the  reality  of  lives  of  license. 

In  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar,  Rome  was  disturbed 
by  civic  wars.  In  the  year  48  Caesar  went  in  search 
of  Pompey,  and  finally  arrived  in  Alexandria  where 
he  passed  the  winter.  Here  he  met  Cleopatra.  The 
following  year  he  left  Egypt,  and  in  46  returned  to 
Rome,  whither  he  was  followed  by  Cleopatra.  After 
Caesar's  assassination,  Antony  wished  to  learn  on 
which  side  of  the  civic  strife  she  was,  and  sought  an 
interview.  He  was  in  Cilicia,  and  sent  for  the  queen 
of  Egypt  to  appear  before  him  to  answer  to  the 
accusation  of  being  a  rebel,  having  been  accused  of 
rendering  aid  to  Cassius  before  the  bloody  battle  of 
Philippi.  Like  the  Queen  of  Sheba  she  made  every 
preparation  for  the  meeting.  She  made  an  irresist- 
ible appeal  to  Antony's  sense  of  vanity,  and  to  his 
taste  for  the  beautiful.  The  Egyptian  spider 
hypnotized  the  Roman  fly.  Here  is  Shakespeare's 
description  of  Cleopatra  on  the  Cydnus: 

"The  barge  she  sat  in,  like  a  burnish'd  throne, 
Burn'd  on  the  water:  the  poop  was  beaten  gold; 


58  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

Purple  the  sails,  and  so  perfumed,  that 

The  winds  were  love-sick  with  them;  the  oars 

were  silver; 

Which  to  the  tune  of  flutes  kept  stroke,  and  made 
The  water,  which  they  beat,  to  follow  faster, 
As  amorous  of  their  strokes.     For  her  own  person, 
It  beggar'd  all  description :  she  did  lie 
In   her   pavilion — cloth-of-gold,    of   tissue — 
O'er-picturing  that  Venus,  where  we  see, 
The  fancy  outwork  nature:  on  each  side  her, 
Stood  pretty  dimpled  boys,  like  smiling  Cupids, 
With  divers-colour'd  fans,  whose  wind  did  seem 
To  glow  the  delicate  cheeks  which  they  did  cool, 
And  what  they  undid  did. 
Her  gentlewomen,  like  the  Nereides, 
So  many  mermaids  tended  her  i'  the  eyes 
And  made  their  bends  adornings:  at  the  helm 
A  seeming  mermaid  steers:  the  silken  tackle 
Swell  with  the  touches  of  those  flower-soft  hands, 
That  yarely  frame  the  office.     From  the  barge 
A  strange  invisible  perfume  hits  the  sense 
Of  the  adjacent  wharfs.     The  city  cast 
Her  people  out  upon  her;  and  Antony, 
Enthroned  in  the  market-place,  did  sit  alone, 
Whistling  to  the  air;  which,  but  for  vacancy, 
Had  gone  to  gaze  on  Cleopatra  too, 
And  made  a  gap  in  nature." 

The  impression  made  by  the  beautiful  woman  on  the 
susceptible  master  of  the  Roman  world  may  be 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  59 

measured  by  his  action  at  the  decisive  battle  of 
Actium,  which  is  the  story  of  Samson  and  Delilah, 
and  of  Hercules  and  Deianeira  repeated.  Cleopatra 
reinforced  Antony  with  a  navy  and  twenty  millions  in 
money.  At  a  critical  moment  she  withdrew  her 
ships  and  Antony,  turning  away  from  possible  victory, 
followed  the  Queen  to  defeat  and  destruction. 
Boarding  her  ship  he  joined  her  on  the  poop,  looking 
back  upon  the  victorious  enemy,  deliberately  sacrific- 
ing his  patriotism  and  his  life,  and  writing  in  the 
red  words  on  the  tomb  of  both : 

"The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 

As  Antony  and  Cleopatra  are  the  chief  characters 
in  this  tragedy  of  sin,  we  will  gain  a  closer  view  of 
both. 

Antony  was  an  orator,  a  statesman,  and  a  general. 
In  eloquence  he  will  be  remembered  by  his  classic 
tribute  to  the  great  Caesar.  In  statesmanship  he 
had  an  opportunity  to  be  even  greater  than  Caesar, 
and  as  a  leader  of  armies  he  might  have  been  a  second 
Hannibal.  He  divided  the  sovereignty  of  the  world 
with  Octavius  and  Lepidus.  As  a  soldier  half  the 
legions  of  Rome  were  under  the  sway  of  his  sceptre. 
But  he  was  not  equal  to  Brutus  in  the  qualities  which 
make  a  man.  He  never  attained  to  individuality, 
and  lived  in  his  senses,  not  his  ideals.  Dominated 
by  people  rather  than  principles,  he  surrendered  to 
a  personality  more  powerful  than  himself.  Antony 


60  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

was  brilliant  and  weak,  intellectual  but  purposeless, 
ambitious,  but  as  susceptible  to  the  charms  of  woman 
as  the  sand  is  the  slave  of  the  wind.  Fulvia  was  his 
wife,  and  after  her  Octavia,  sister  of  Octavius,  his 
last  and  greatest  rival.  It  was  this  Octavius  who  is 
known  in  history  as  Augustus  Caesar.  By  choosing 
a  woman  at  Actium  instead  of  a  victory,  the  destiny 
of  the  Roman  Empire  was  changed.  Antony  was 
given  to  self-indulgence.  The  asp  in  the  basket  of 
figs  was  the  wine  in  the  cup.  It  was  this  adder  that 
first  bit  him.  The  ideals  of  some  men  are  as 
useless  as  coats  of  mail  which  are  never  worn.  The 
man  who  lives  in  the  flesh  never  wins  victories.  No 
great  military  leader  has  ever  surrendered  himself  to 
his  cups.  For  the  most  part,  great  generals  and 
statesmen  have  been  temperate.  Witness  Oliver 
Cromwell,  who  dismissed  the  House  of  Parliament 
by  the  force  of  arms,  and  walked  away  with  the  key 
to  the  British  Empire  in  his  pocket — he  was  temper- 
ate. Gustavus  Adolphus,  Caesar,  and  Frederick  the 
Great  belong  to  the  list  of  masters.  Whatever  may 
be  said  against  Napoleon — he  who  raised  an  army 
which  he  used  as  a  brush  of  fire  to  scour  and  scrub  the 
floor  of  Europe,  was  temperate,  else  he  would  not 
have  done  it.  The  banquet  has  slain  more  generals 
than  the  battle-field.  Sensualism  slew  Antony,  and 
death  was  the  reward. 

Where  is  Antony  today?  You  will  find  him  in 
the  fashionable  cafes  in  Europe,  the  center  of  admir- 
ing worshippers  in  the  pleasure  centers  of  the  world. 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  61 

You  will  recognize  him  as  you  meet  him  on  the 
steamships  which  cross  the  seas,  and  hear  his  glass 
clink  in  the  gorgeous  gambling  resorts  and  fashion- 
able saloons.  You  see  him  spending  inherited  money. 
Shakespeare  has  given  a  hint  of  his  extravagance  in 
Timon  of  Athens,  who  is  a  fool,  while  Antony  passes 
as  a  gentleman  and  makes  a  bid  for  American  girls. 
He  is  an  undesirable  citizen,  and  a  useless,  dangerous 
type,  who  makes  a  poor  husband,  a  poor  patriot,  and 
at  last,  falls  upon  his  own  sword — his  own  worst 
enemy. 

What  shall  we  think  of  Cleopatra  in  whom  the 
sands  of  earth  mingled  with  the  grains  of  gold,  and 
the  fascination  of  voluptuous  charm  seasoned  the 
better  qualities  of  her  personality.  More  Greek 
than  Egyptian,  this  wonderful  woman  fills  a  large 
place  in  an  age  in  which  Rome  and  Alexandria  were 
the  centers  of  the  world's  life.  Born  sixty-nine 
years  before  Christ,  the  last  in  the  line  of  Ptolemies, 
she  spent  much  of  her  early  life  in  Alexandria,  famous 
for  its  library,  and  its  culture.  At  the  age  of  nine- 
teen she  chained  Caesar  by  her  irresistible  charms. 
Upon  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  Alexandria,  she 
returned  with  him  to  Rome,  where  she  remained  until 
his  assassination.  She  was  twenty-eight,  "a  period 
of  life,"  says  Plutarch,  "when  woman's  beauty  is 
most  splendid,  and  her  intellect  is  in  full  maturity," 
when  she  met  Antony. 

Cleopatra  is  a  social  queen  today.  She  is  the 
woman  of  the  world,  and  "the  woman  of  the  world" 


62  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

is  the  companion  of  Antony,  "the  man  of  the  world." 
You  may  meet  her  on  the  Rialto,  and  in  the  Ball 
Room,  you  will  find  her  in  the  Halls  of  Legislation, 
in  Congress,  in  the  European  Courts,  wherever  there 
is  power  and  wealth  and  influence.  She  makes  her 
home  in  the  modern  Romes  and  Alexandrias,  always 
charming,  ever  deadly  in  her  influence,  and  never  to 
be  trusted.  She  is  the  aspic  in  the  fig-basket  of 
modern  affairs.  She  is  the  Lorelei,  the  Siren  of  the 
sea,  the  dangerous  woman  against  whom  men  of 
might  must  wax  their  ears  to  escape  the  deadly 
charm. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra  create  a  social  condition 
which  comprises  the  crucial  problem  of  our  times. 
They  are  types  which  illustrate  the  luxury  and  extrav- 
agance of  the  age,  and  while  the  story  of  this  couple 
is  replete  with  signs  of  extravagance  and  luxury,  it 
is  oft  repeated.  No  age  is  more  luxuriant  than  ours. 
Never  was  there  such  extravagance.  The  dimpled 
cupids  fanning  Cleopatra  are  supplanted  by  high- 
priced  servants,  and  the  barge  is  insignificant  in 
comparison  with  the  modern  ship,  Pullman  car,  and 
automobile — at  least  the  multiplicity  of  these  com- 
forts of  transportation  accessible  to  all  classes  of 
people,  stamps  this  age  as  one  of  unusual  comfort. 
The  state  of  worldliness  constituted  by  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  has  become  a  world  peril.  It  is  the  sting  of 
this  worldly  asp  that  poisoned  the  nations  of  antiquity, 
that  turned  Athens  into  a  mute  and  splendid  memo- 
rial of  marble  and  memory;  that  sent  its  deadly 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  63 

influence  through  great  Rome  and  changed  the  city 
of  the  Caesars  into  a  city  of  tourists.  The  world 
has  more  to  fear  from  Antony  and  Cleopatra  than 
anybody  or  anything.  Sensualism  is  destroying 
more  people  than  work.  Vice  is  rotting  away  the 
foundations  of  the  social  structure,  and  the  Antonys 
and  Cleopatras  are  the  types  which  are  boring  into 
current  life,  as  the  worm  works  its  way  into  the 
solid  oak  of  the  wharves.  Our  country  need  have  no 
fear  of  foreign  foes.  The  American  people  need  not 
greatly  concern  themselves  about  threatened  invasion 
of  the  Chinese  or  Japanese.  The  bristling  guns  on 
our  sea-front  do  not  symbolize  the  real  perils  of  the 
Republic.  Our  foes  are  within.  If  our  country  is 
ever  destroyed  it  will  be  destroyed  by  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.  It  will  be  pulled  down  by  the  jeweled 
hands  of  the  men  and  women  who  live  in  their 
senses,  and  who  by  self-indulgence  and  luxury, 
extravagance  and  vice,  violate  the  wholesome  laws 
of  the  simple  life,  and  weaken  the  moral  and  physical 
fibre  of  the  people. 

The  inevitable  end  of  such  condition  is  tragedy. 
Mark  the  meaning  of  this  oft  used  word,  tragedy. 
This  is  not  a  comedy.  Here  and  there  laughter 
rings  out,  but  it  is  the  forced  laugh  of  guilt  and  vice. 
Shakespeare  with  the  skill  of  a  true  artist  introduces 
his  smiles  before  the  tragic  blow.  You  will  find  this 
in  all  his  tragedies.  He  makes  you  smile  before  he 
makes  you  cry.  You  have  observed  on  a  summer 
day,  a  deadly  silence  and  tranquility  just  before  the 


64  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

storm  breaks,  with  its  loosened  fires,  and  thunders, 
and  drenching  rains.  Shakespeare  is  true  to  nature 
— before  the  tragical  comes  the  frivolous.  The 
comedy  of  our  age  is  but  the  prologue  of  the  tragedy, 
and  how  full  of  tragedy  is  this  twentieth  century. 
Every  morning  we  read  the  play  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.  Antony  is  disappointed  at  last.  It  is 
always  so.  It  has  been  true  since  Samson  and  Deli- 
lah. Cleopatra  is  stronger  than  Antony.  Women 
may  rule  or  ruin.  In  the  contest  of  personalities 
she  invariably  proves  the  stronger.  A  bad  woman 
may  do  more  injury  than  a  bad  man.  Antony 
falls  upon  his  sword,  believing  her  dead.  She  con- 
ceals herself  in  a  castle  or  monument.  Covered 
with  blood  and  slowly  dying  he  is  drawn  up  to  her 
chamber  and  expires  in  her  arms — this  frail  man 
once  the  master  of  the  world — now  the  withered 
leaf  crumpled  in  the  hand  of  the  Egyptian  Queen. 
What  an  illustration  of  the  words  "The  wages  of 
sin  is  death."  Sin  receives  its  wage,  and  death  is 
the  coin  in  which  it  is  paid.  Cleopatra  commits 
suicide.  A  countryman  appears  with  his  basket  of 
figs,  and  in  it  is  the  deadly  reptile.  This  pagan 
woman  whose  paganism  transmitted  to  other  genera- 
tions, flows  through  the  veins  of  much  of  our  modern 
womanhood,  obeys  the  paganism  of  her  fathers,  and 
without  a  belief  in  the  future  and  a  right  doctrine 
of  life.  To  Proculeius  she  says, 

"Know  sir  that  I 
Will  not  wait  pinion'd  at  your  master's  court; 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  65 

Nor  once  be  chastis'd  with  the  sober  eye 

Of  dull  Octavia Rather  a  ditch  in 

Egypt.    Be  gentle  grave  to  me." 

Afraid  to  meet  the  evils  of  life,  she  dies  as  only  a 
pagan  dies — by  suicide,  and  so  she  puts  the  asp  to 
her  arm  and  breast,  and  as  she  does  so,  one  last  white 
wave  of  remnant  motherhood  breaks  over  the  ruins 
of  her  life,  and  she  utters  that  simple  sob  of  sorrow: 

"Dost  thou  not  see  my  baby  at  my  breast, 
That  sucks  the  nurse  asleep." 

Over  against  this  tragical  conclusion  of  the  physi- 
cal destruction  of  these  ruling  and  powerful,  but 
misdirected  natures,  is  the  more  momentous  fact 
of  their  spiritual  disentegration  and  death,  a  fact 
which  personified  the  ultimate  end  of  the  older  Rome 
and  Egypt.  It  is  against  this  destruction  that  Paul 
hurls  his  majestic  message,  and  makes  his  final  appeal. 
His  is  a  new  civilization  founded  upon  the  eternal 
principles  of  righteousness.  His  is  the  civilization 
of  life,  not  of  death.  The  old  order  was  that  of 
hopeless  paganism,  the  new  order  is  one  of  helpful 
Christianity.  This  gift  of  eternal  life  is  the  salvation 
of  both  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Men  call  it  religion, 
they  call  it  faith,  and  oft  times  it  is  clothed  in  terms 
misunderstood  by  the  popular  mind,  but  it  is  the 
saving  grace  of  the  eternal,  and  which  alone  can  lift 
up  Egypt  and  Rome  and  resurrect  fron  the  grave  of 
sensual  worldliness,  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 


66  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

It  is  the  subtle  but  masterful  spirit  which,  taking 
possession  of  Antony,  transforms  him  into  a  William 
the  Silent,  or  a  Gladstone,  and  which  gripping  the 
finer  sensibilities  of  Cleopatra,  changes  her  into  a 
queen  among  the  better  women  of  the  world.  God 
does  not  destroy,  but  changes  functions,  talents, 
forces.  He  takes  the  sword  and  changes  it  into  a 
plow-share,  he  does  not  utterly  destroy  it.  He 
seizes  the  spear,  still  wet  with  its  costly  sacrifice, 
and  turns  it  into  a  pruning  hook.  He  seizes  an 
Antony,  and  guarding  divinely  the  misdirected 
forces  of  his  soul,  regenerates  them  and  recreates  the 
man.  This  is  the  gift  of  eternal  life.  Thus  Shakes- 
peare and  Paul  bring  before  us,  in  a  tremendously 
effective  contrast,  the  two  opposing  principles  of  two 
contrary  civilizations, — the  one,  the  awful  wages  of 
sin,  the  other  the  sublime  gift  of  the  Eternal  God. 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  AND 
THE  GOLDEN  RULE 

"Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them:  for  this  is 
the  law  and  the  prophets."  Matthew  7:12. 

WHILE  the  scene  of  the  Merchant 
of  Venice  is  laid  under  the  soft 
Italian  skies  by  the  tideless  Adriatic 
in  whose  lagoons  the  richly  colored 
palaces  of  Venice  reflect  the  glory  of  an  older  day, 
the  passions  of  the  comedy  are  reflected  in  the  market 
place  of  the  modern  world.  The  characters  who 
move  back  and  forth  through  the  shadows  of  legal 
cunning,  business  strategy,  religious  bigotry  and 
racial  hatred,  reveal  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
modern  man  who  transacts  business  and  deals  with 
the  quibbles  of  the  law.  Adventure,  surprise  and 
suspicion  blend  in  a  dramatic  expression  which  has 
drawn  upon  the  imagination  of  the  author  and 
appeals  to  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  in  the 
reader.  The  story  of  "the  pound  of  flesh"  is  com- 
bined with  that  of  "the  three  boxes."  The  first 
concerns  us  in  this  study  of  the  play.  The 
story  of  the  pound  of  flesh  may  be  traced  back  to  the 
mythology  of  the  Hindus.  Shylock,  the  Jew,  was  a 
usurer,  lived  in  Venice  and  made  a  fortune  by  lending 

67 


68  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

money  at  great  interest  to  Christian  merchants. 
The  play  is  laid  in  a  time  of  conflict  between  the 
Jews  and  Christians.  This  is  the  pivot  on  which  the 
drama  rests.  Antonio,  a  kind,  but  rather  weak  man, 
was  popular  among  his  fellows,  and  among  his  best 
friends  was  Bassanio,  a  noble  Venetian  who  became 
engaged  to  a  lady  of  rank,  named  Portia.  He  asked 
Antonio  to  loan  him  some  money,  saying  his  ship 
would  soon  be  in,  when  he  would  pay  it  back.  Anto- 
nio did  not  have  the  money,  but  suggested  that 
Shy  lock  would  make  the  loan.  He  was  appealed  to 
and  consented,  musing  within  himself  "If  I  can  once 
catch  him  on  the  hip,  I  will  feed  fat  the  ancient 
grudge  I  bear  him.  He  hates  our  Jewish  nation, 
and  he  lends  out  money  gratis;  and  among  the  mer- 
chants he  rants  at  me  and  my  well  earned  bargains 
which  he  calls  interest.  Cursed  be  my  tribe  if  I 
forgive  him!" 

After  a  stormy  interview  in  which  the  rights 
and  wrongs  of  the  Jew  were  exploited,  an  agreement 
was  made  that  the  money  would  be  loaned,  and  if 
he  did  not  repay  it  by  a  certain  day,  he  would  forfeit 
a  pound  of  flesh,  to  be  cut  off  from  any  part  of  his 
body  that  Shylock  pleased.  In  the  meantime 
Antonio's  ships  were  wrecked.  Bassanio  was  mar- 
ried. Then  came  the  execution  of  the  bond.  An- 
tonio was  imprisoned.  The  place  of  the  trial  was 
Venice.  Portia  disguised  as  a  lawyer,  appeared 
as  counsel  for  the  defense.  The  Jew  demanded  the 
pound  of  flesh.  He  would  show  no  mercy,  accept 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE          69 

no  money,  since  the  time  had  passed,  and  sharpened 
his  knife  in  preparation  for  cutting  off  the  pound  of 
flesh.  Portia  resorted  to  a  legal  quibble  and  pointed 
out  that  if  a  drop  of  blood  be  shed  in  cutting  the 
pound  of  flesh,  Shylock's  lands  and  goods  are  by  the 
law  to  be  confiscated  to  the  State  of  Venice.  Fur- 
ther, that  if  more  or  less  be  taken,  he  would  be,  by 
the  laws  of  Venice,  condemned  to  die,  and  his  wealth 
forfeited  to  the  senate.  Again,  "by  the  laws  of 
Venice  your  wealth  is  forfeited  to  the  State  for  having 
conspired  against  the  life  of  one  of  its  citizens,  and 
your  life  lies  at  the  mercy  of  the  duke;  therefore 
down  on  your  knees,  and  ask  him  to  pardon  you." 
The  duke  then  said  to  Shylock, 

"That   thou  shalt  see  the  difference  of  our 

spirits, 

I  pardon  thee  thy  life  before  thou  ask  it : 
For  half  thy  wealth,  it  is  Antonio's: 
The  other  half  comes  to  the  general  state, 
Which  humbleness  may  drive  unto  a  fine." 

Antonio  said  he  would  give  up  his  share  if  Shylock 
would  deed  it  to  his  daughter  who  had  married  a 
Christian,  and  then  the  duke  said  the  State  would 
forgive  the  fine  of  the  other  half  of  the  riches  if  he 
repented,  and  turned  Christian.  Shylock  said,  "I 
am  ill.  Let  me  go  home ;  and  send  the  deed  after  me, 
and  I  will  sign  over  half  my  riches  to  my  daughter." 
Shakespeare  did  not  construct  such  a  play  without 
a  definite  ethical  object.  To  find  this  object  will 
be  my  purpose.  Literature  is  not  purposeless.  It 


70  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

has  a  text  and  an  application  and  if  it  have  neither 
it  is  not  literature.  While  many  separate  and 
complete  lessons  may  be  drawn  from  a  play  such  as 
The  Merchant  of  Venice,  some  definite  ruling  ethical 
principle  will  be  found  underneath  the  whole  struc- 
ture. The  religionist  will  find  in  the  Merchant  of 
Venice  a  discussion  between  the  Jew  and  the  Chris- 
tian; the  student  of  race-hatred,  an  opportunity  to 
study  the  racial  relations  between  the  Jew  and 
Gentile;  the  lawyer,  a  series  of  legal  complexities 
which  are  worth  his  profoundest  study;  the  moralist, 
a  theme  in  which  moral  values  are  weighed  and 
measured;  the  economist  will  be  interested  in  a  con- 
flict between  rights  of  property  and  the  rights  of  hu- 
manity; while  the  romancer  will  find  ample  field 
for  the  consideration  of  the  clash  between  love 
and  business  honor.  All  of  these  aspects  are  rich 
with  blessings  and  practical  moral  conclusions. 
Comprehensively  they  are  ail  involved  in  what  is 
known  as  the  Golden  Rule — "Do  unto  others  as  you 
would  have  others  do  unto  you,"  an  ethical  standard 
involving  justice,  mercy,  righteousness  and  the 
unquestioned  ideal  of  behavior  between  man  and 
man.  The  Golden  Rule  is  cordially  accepted  by 
everybody  and  freely  repudiated  by  anybody  who 
wishes  to  have  his  own  way.  It  is  a  paradox  that 
men  with  impunity  break  that,which  with  enthusiasm, 
they  believe.  Because  it  stands  as  the  unquestioned 
though  unattained  standard  of  morality  the  world 
over,  it  may  serve  as  a  standard  of  moral  measure- 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE          71 

ments  for  the  characters  and  ideals  of  The  Merchant 
of  Venice. 

The  people  of  the  play  may  first  come  forward  to 
be  tested  by  the  Golden  Rule.  We  may  as  well 
begin  with  Antonio,  who  will  be  the  first  in  the  small 
group  of  leading  characters  to  be  subjected  to  our 
examination.  Antonio  may  quickly  be  disposed 
of  as  a  rash  friend  and  imprudent  business  man, 
an  incautious  weakling  of  not  very  much  strength  of 
character  who  lends  himself  easily  and  without  any 
strain  of  conscience  to  the  strategy  of  a  quibble  and 
the  technicalities  of  law. 

Bassanio  is  a  fascinating  parasite  caught  in  the 
mesh  of  confiding  friendship  on  one  side,  and  an 
ardent  love  on  the  other. 

Portia  is  the  most  modern  of  Shakespearean  women. 
By  this  is  meant,  she  is  most  masculine.  This 
masculinity,  moreover,  is  admirably  held  in  check  and 
ruled  by  a  dominating  sweetness  and  refinement 
which  lends  peculiar  charm  to  her  personality.  She 
performs  publicly  a  man's  part,  shares  a  man's 
legal  and  commercial  strategy,  and  speaks  with  the 
mature  eloquence  of  an  experienced  advocate.  Her 
words  are  sharp  and  to  the  point,  and  convey  a 
certain  sense  of  assurance  which  comes  from  the 
feeling  that  she  has  the  advantage  of  the  Jew.  She 
worries  Shylock  as  a  toreadore  worries  a  bull  in  the 
ring  and  one  cannot  help  watching  the  darts  as  they 
strike  and  quiver.  She  warms  his  Jewish  blood 
and  wounds  him  with  her  quibbles.  The  justly 


72  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

celebrated  speech  on  "mercy"  is  directly  opposed  to 
her  purpose  and  feeling.  It  is  the  most  complete 
expression  of  inconsistency  in  Shakespeare.  She 
is  preaching  one  thing,  and  as  a  lawyer,  practising 
another.  The  contest  between  her  and  Shylock  is 
a  contest  of  technicalities.  Neither  Shylock  nor 
Portia  is  ruled  by  the  justice  of  the  case.  What 
Portia  says  of  justice  and  mercy  is  all  very  true  in 
the  abstract  but  she  does  not  apply  the  beautiful 
gospel  to  the  Jew  whom  she  defeats  by  recourse  to 
the  letter  of  the  law.  The  issue  between  them  is 
not  one  of  generous  fairness  but  of  the  loop-hole  in 
the  bond.  Portia  is  no  more  just  than  Shylock. 
The  instrument  of  her  assault  is  the  same  as  that  of 
her  opponent.  She  fights  fire  with  fire  and  answers 
quibble  with  quibble.  She  is  not  so  amiable  as 
Mrs.  Jameison  pictures  her,  nor  so  pedantic  and 
fair  as  Hazlitt  would  have  us  think,  but  over-rated 
by  extravagant  critics  who  have  forgotten  her  faulty 
legal  procedure  in  admiration  of  her  personality. 
There  is  a  painful  disguise  in  all  this  woman  does  and 
says — a  disguise  symbolized  by  her  dress,  but  far 
more  fundamental  in  fact.  Shylock  is  surrounded 
by  a  company  of  women  bent  on  stealing  away  the 
peace  of  his  soul  and  the  contents  of  his  purse.  Jes- 
sica is  a  flippant  little  minx  who  breaks  her  father's 
heart  by  running  away  with  a  Christian  man. 
Nerissa,  the  waiting  maid,  is  rather  a  nonentity. 
While  the  title  makes  the  Merchant  the  central  figure, 
Shylock  is  the  chief  figure  of  the  play,  and  made 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  73 

the  occasion  of  a  highly  dramatic  situation,  giving 
opportunity  for  Shakespeare  to  dissect  and  reveal 
the  spirit  of  Judaism.  Shy  lock  is  the  storm  center 
of  racial  hatred  and  business  and  domestic  intrigue. 
The  state,  the  church,  society,  and  the  home 
are  all  involved  in  the  strange  mingling  of  cir- 
cumstances. His  passionate  appeal  to  the  letter 
of  the  bond  is  the  Pharisaical  emphasis  upon 
the  religion  of  the  outward  life.  In  his 
physical  appearance,  he  portrays  with  admirable 
accuracy  the  Jewish  characteristics.  Shakespeare 
has  outlined  the  Jewish  race  in  the  personal  appear- 
ance of  Shy  lock.  Edwin  Booth's  interpreta- 
tion of  Shylock  may  be  cited  as  one  that 
is  quite  consistent  with  Shakepeare's  under- 
standing of  the  Jew,  and  not  the  least 
of  importance  in  the  interpretation  of  his  character, 
is  Booth's  conception  of  Shylock's  dress.  For 
Shylock's  costume  he  found  a  suggestion  from  one 
of  the  oriental  figures  of  a  painting  by  Gerome 
"The  Nautch  Girl"  which  consisted  of  "a  long  dark 
green  gown  trimmed  at  the  edge  of  the  skirt  with  an 
irregular  device  of  brown  color;  a  dark  brown  gaber- 
dine with  flowing  sleeves  and  hood  lined  with  green 
and  trimmed  as  the  gown;  a  variegated  scarf  about 
the  waist  from  which  descends  a  leather  pouch; 
red  leather  pointed  shoes;  and  hat  of  orange-tawny 
color  shaped  somewhat  like  the  Phrygian  cap  but  with 
a  rim  of  about  two  inches  turned  up;  head  gray  and 
pretty  bald;  beard  of  same  color  and  quite  long, 


74  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

earrings  and  several  finger  rings,  one  on  thumb  and 
one  on  forefinger;  a  long  knotted  staff;  complexion 
swarthy;  age  about  sixty,  I  judge  from  what  is  said 
of  it  by  one  of  the  gallants,  when  he  is  mourning  the 
loss  of  his  daughter,  but  it  is  difficult  to  determine 
the  years  of  such  natures."  The  personality  of  the 
Jew,  the  mixture  of  religous  fanaticism  and  commer- 
cial ambition,  the  traits  of  his  race  which  nothing 
has  been  able  to  destroy  nor  materially  change,  has 
been  the  subject  for  analysis  and  criticism  in  fiction, 
drama,  and  history.  The  Jew  in  fiction,  as  in  real 
life,  has  never  been  treated  with  much  generosity. 
Before  the  Merchant  of  Venice  appeared,  "The  Jew 
of  Malta"  by  Marlowe  was  given  scant  jus- 
tice. Carlyle  and  Thackeray  have  almost  cari- 
catured him,  while  Dickens  made  "Fagin"  a  monster, 
and  Scott's  "Ivanhoe",  and  George  Eliot's  "Daniel 
Deronda"  are  of  a  higher  standard.  In  Shy  lock, 
Shakespeare  has  compressed  four  thousand  years 
or  more  of  stress  and  struggle  against  religious 
bigotry  and  racial  hatred.  Shylock  is  ultra-Judaism. 
His  doctrine  is  "an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth."  This  belief  flowed  in  his  blood,  flashed  from 
his  eye,  and  trembled  in  the  hand  that  gripped  the 
knife  that  was  sharpened  to  cut  the  pound  of  flesh. 
It  was  this  doctrine  that  was  recorded  in  the  bond. 
He  stands  for  the  merciless  letter  of  the  law.  Shrewd 
in  bargain-making,  he  carries  it  to  its  human  limit 
once  it  is  made.  The  elopement  of  his  daughter 
adds  to  the  fuel  which  fires  his  soul.  He  carries 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  75 

his  nervous  religious  convictions  into  his  business 
affairs.  There  is  a  cruel  cunning  in  his  merciless 
soliloquy: — 

"Signior  Antonio,  many  a  time  and  oft 
In  the  Rialto  you  have  rated  me 
About  my  moneys  and  my  usances; 
Still  have   I  borne  it   with  a  patient  shrug; 
For  sufferance  is  the  badge  of  all  our  tribe. 
You  call  me  misbeliever,  cut-throat  dog, 
And  spit  upon  my  Jewish  gaberdine, 
And  all  for  use  of  that  which  is  mine  own. 
Well  then,  it  now  appears  you  need  my  help: 
Go  to,  then;  you  come  to  me,  and  you  say 
'Shylock,  we  would  have  moneys:'  you  say  so; 
You,  that  did  void  your  rheum  upon  my  beard, 
And  foot  me  as  you  spurn  a  stranger  cur 
Over  your  threshold;  moneys  is  your  suit. 
What  should  I  say  to  you?     Should  I  not  say 
'Hath  a  dog  money?     is  it  possible 
A   cur  can   lend   three   thousand   ducats?'   or 
Shall  I  bend  low  and  in  a  bondman's  key, 
With  bated  breath  and  whispering  humbleness, 
Say  this, — 

'Fair  sir,  you  spit  on  me  on  Wednesday  last; 
You  spurned  me  such  a  day;  another  time 
You  call'd  me  dog;  and  for  these  courtesies 
I'll  lend  you  this  much  moneys'? 


76  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

ANTONIO — 

"I  am  as  like  to  call  thee  so  again, 

To  spit  on  thee  again,  to  spurn  thee  too. 

If  thou  wilt  lend  this  money,  lend  it  not 

As  to  thy  friends;  for  when  did  friendship  take 

A  breed  for  barren  metal  of  his  friend? 

But  lend  it  rather  to  thine  enemy; 

Who  if  he  break,  thou  mayest  with  better  face 

Exact  the  penalty." 

As  one  looks  upon  this  aroused  and  tumultuous  Jew 
standing  before  his  unsympathetic  associates  like  a 
barren  and  fruitless  tree  before  the  storm,  one's 
sympathies  go  out  to  him.  He  is  the  only  figure 
in  the  play  which  invites  our  sympathy.  He  is  the 
personification  of  the  persecuted  race,  surrounded  in 
this  instance  by  a  company  of  clever  and  rather 
unscrupulous  enemies. 

Measured  by  the  Golden  Rule,  this  is  indeed  a 
comedy  and  not  a  drama.  It  is  the  catastrophe 
of  cunning,  a  tragedy  in  the  letter  of  the  law  and 
acted  in  modern  courts  so  often  that  public  conscience 
is  almost  seared  with  the  repetition  of  its  inhuman 
processes.  Let  us  draw  closer  to  these  chief  partici- 
pants in  this  transaction  and  observe  how  law  is 
bandied  back  and  forth  as  a  tennis  ball,  subject 
wholly  to  the  skill  and  dexterity  of  the  players.  The 
close  observer  will  perceive  that  law  is  determined 
not  by  its  intrinsic  moral  worth  but  by  the  resources 
of  the  skilled  player.  Portia  is  on  one  side  of  the  net, 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  77 

Shylock  on  the  other,  and  the  comedy  is  a  dramatic 
description  of  the  game.  The  trial  is  a  demonstra- 
tion of  abuse  of  law  by  law.  A  law-suit  is  a  fight. 
The  court  is  the  field.  It  is  more  than  a  game.  It 
is  a  serious  conflict  subject  to  all  the  chances  and 
surprises  of  the  battle.  The  result  is  usually  spoken 
of  as  having  been  "won"  or  "lost".  This  makes 
court  scenes  comedy.  Shylock  wants  his  pound  of 
flesh — so  the  bond  dictates.  Portia  warns  against 
the  shedding  of  a  drop  of  blood  which  is  also  justified 
by  the  unwritten  conditions  of  the  bond  and  thus 
quibble  offsets  quibble.  To  answer  cunning  with 
cunning  is  not  a  vindication  of  justice.  Having 
once  defeated  the  Jew,  judgment  is  given  against  the 
plaintiff.  A  decision  is  rendered  to  the  effect  that 
his  estate  be  forfeited,  one-half  to  the  Commonwealth, 
the  other  to  the  defendant;  that  his  life  lie  at  the 
mercy  of  the  duke;  and  to  crown  all,  that  he  be  a 
Christian.  This  may  be  law,  but  a  form  of  justice 
which  is  hard  to  adjust  to  the  Golden  Rule  and 
affords  a  suggestive  study  in  the  ethics  of  the  court- 
room. The  trial  scene  is  a  very  good  reflection  of 
the  jurisprudence  of  modern  times  in  which  too  often 
passion  supplants  principle,  the  technicality  of  the 
letter,  the  gracious  spirit  of  justice,  and  strategy 
abuses  the  ethics  of  mercy. 

In  the  light  of  the  rule  laid  down  by  the  great 
Master  of  morals,  one  may  at  least  reflect  upon  the 
relation  of  justice  and  mercy,  and  their  relative  bear- 
ing upon  human  conduct.  As  liberty  is  made  of  law, 


78  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

so  is  justice  made  of  mercy.  Liberty  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  law,  and  justice  is  the  fulfillment  of  mercy. 
One  completes  the  other  and  satisfies  its  claims. 
Law  in  the  crude  is  without  freedom.  It  is  a  master 
which  brings  us  to  the  realization  of  liberty.  Justice 
in  the  raw  is  severe  and  merciless.  Seasoned  with 
mercy  it  becomes  righteous  and  loving.  Justice 
would  put  us  all  within  the  heartless  hold  of  law  were 
it  not  tempered  with  mercy.  God  does  not  govern 
the  world  on  the  principle  of  justice  except  as  justice 
is  seasoned  with  mercy. 

"Therefore,  Jew, 

Though  justice  be  thy  plea,  consider  this, 
That,  in  the  course  of  justice,  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation." 

Justice  is  not  revenge.  The  purpose  of  all  punish- 
ment in  God's  mind  is  merciful  redemption.  Justice 
without  mercy  is  the  severity  of  the  letter.  Mercy 
with  justice  is  the  saving  quality  of  the  spirit.  The 
mixture  of  these  two  moral  ingredients  results  in  the 
Golden  Rule.  Portia  makes  a  beautifully  dramatic 
address  on  the  quality  of  mercy,  recalling  the  words 
from  Ecclesiasticus,  "Mercy  is  seasonable  in  the 
time  of  affliction  as  clouds  of  rain  in  time  of 
drought,"  and  makes  her  first  point  by  declar- 
ing that  mercy  shall  not  be  compulsive  but 
free  in  its  exercise — that  its  nature  is  to  flow  freely 
and  unrestrainedly  like  the  rain.  This  would  be 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  79 

a  very  remarkable  speech  if  reinforced  by  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  speaker.     It  will  bear  re-reading. 

"The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strain'd, 
It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  Heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath:  it  is  twice  blest; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes : 
'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest:  it  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown; 
His  sceptre  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power, 
The  attributes  to  awe  and  majesty, 
Wherein  doth  sit  the  dread  and  fear  of  kings; 
But  mercy  is  above  this  sceptered  sway; 
It  is  enthroned  in  the    hearts    of  kings, 
It  is  an  attribute  to  God  himself; 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest 

God's 

When  mercy  seasons  justice.  Therefore,  Jew, 
Though  justice  be  thy  plea,  consider  this, 
That,  in  the  course  of  justice,  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation:  we  do  pray  for  mercy; 
And  that  same  prayer  doth  teach  us  all  to 

render 
The  deeds  of  mercy.     I  have  spoke  thus 

much 

To  mitigate  the  justice  of  thy  plea; 
Which  if  thou  follow,  this  strict  court  of 

Venice 

Must  needs  give  sentence  'gainst  the  mer- 
chant there." 


80  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

Portia's  intellectual  gifts  shine  with  lustre  in  this 
magnificent  appeal  in  which  she  is  at  once  a  lover 
and  a  lawyer.  Interested  in  her  two  clients,  one 
her  husband,  the  other  her  husband's  friend,  her 
appeal  to  the  Jew's  mercy  was  not  for  the  sake  of 
mercy  but  of  men.  She  tried  to  win  him  first  with 
honey  then  with  gall.  She  would  cover  him  with 
roses  and  then  poison  him  with  animosity  and 
bitterness.  She  used  a  golden  arrow  to  penetrate 
the  hard  heart  of  Shy  lock,  but  the  arrow  broke  into 
pieces  at  the  base  of  four  thousand  years  of  perse- 
cution. 

Much  time  has  been  spent  in  tracing  the  origin 
of  the  plot  and  the  source  of  the  facts  of  the  Merchant 
of  Venice.  Whether  the  old  ballad  of  Geruntus 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  the  Northern  Lord,  or 
a  chapter  Leti  from  Pope  Sextus  V,  or  a  story  dis- 
covered in  Shakespeare's  time  in  an  Italian  book 
entitled  "II  Pecorone",  or  the  bond  and  casket  story 
in  the  Gesta  Romanorum  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
or  a  Persian  manuscript  translated  by  Munro,  or 
Marlowe's  "Jew  of  Malta,"  or  a  half  dozen  other 
sources  are  responsible  for  its  origin,  this  I  think  may 
be  set  down  as  true — that  Shakespeare  found  abund- 
ant material  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  legal  and  busi- 
ness life  to  compose  a  plot  so  characteristic  of  human 
nature.  The  mixture  of  passion  and  principle,  of 
personality  and  opportunity,  in  the  development  of 
the  Merchant  of  Venice  is  reproduced  in  modern 
life,  and  scenes  may  be  laid  in  any  city  in  America 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  81 

and  not  do  violence  to  the  customs  of  the  courts  and 
the  principles  of  the  people.  The  play  illustrates 
at  once  the  value  of  a  practical  application  of  the 
Golden  Rule,  and  the  lack  of  capacity  in  the  average 
man  to  make  that  rule  a  law  for  the  enforcement  of  law, 
and  a  principle  for  human  conduct.  It  is  now,  as 
then,  an  object  for  our  attainment,  and  furnishes 
much  inspiration  for  that  preaching  which  is  ideal, 
and  the  moralizing  of  reformers  which  makes  inspir- 
ing homilies.  When  our  Lord  delivered  the  sermon 
on  the  Mount,  He  went  away  from  the  multitudes, 
escaped  to  the  mountain  and  talked  to  His  disciples. 
The  multitudes  have  never  practiced  the  sermon  He 
preached  on  that  occasion  when  he  uttered  the 
Golden  Rule. 

The  most  superficial  moralist  may  see  in  this  play 
the  injunction  that  Shylock  should  do  unto  Antonio 
as  he  would  have  Antonio  do  unto  him,  and  that 
Antonio  should  do  unto  Shylock  as  he  would  have 
Shylock  do  unto  him.  Portia  did  not  succeed  in 
perfectly  interpreting  this  law,  but  like  most  reform- 
ers was  influenced  by  partisanship,  a  reminder 
unwritten  but  none  the  less  apparent,  as  in  this  play, 
charging  the  Christian  to  be  fair  to  the  Jew  and  the 
Jew  to  be  fair  to  the  Christian  in  matters  of  religious 
belief.  The  courts  of  law  are  suffused  with  the 
penetrating  light  that  brings  within  the  gaze  of  any 
man,  who  would  study  the  ups  and  downs  of  law, 
how  dangerous  is  the  emphasis  upon  the  letter  at 
the  expense  of  the  righteousness  of  the  spirit.  The 


82  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

courts,  for  the  most  part,  are  still  dominated  by  the 
doctrine  of  Judaism.  They  are  still  on  the  Old 
Testament  ground.  The  defeat  of  justice  by  a  resort 
to  the  technical  imperfections  in  the  bond  is  a  cause 
of  apprehension.  The  application  of  this  gospel  of 
right  treatment  to  capital  and  labor  is  one  of  the 
dreams  of  the  industrial  reformer.  The  problem 
is  unsolved  because  men  are  not  good  enough  to 
make  a  practical  adaptation  of  the  ethics  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  needs  of  society,  which 
is  another  inducement  to  make  the  world  capable  of 
doing  good.  Good  principles  will  not  be  applied 
by  bad  people.  Cleverness,  strategy,  chicanery, 
and  the  adroit  handling  of  the  tennis  ball  of  truth 
may  win  a  game  in  clever  play,  but  will  not  realize 
the  purpose  of  the  Golden  Rule. 

The  drama  then  has  been  called  a  comedy  of 
intrigue,  in  which  the  god  of  the  world  is  set  over 
against  the  God  of  justice  and  truth.  It  has  been 
interpreted  as  a  study  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
property,  but  with  greater  fitness  may  be  thought 
of  as  a  study  of  man's  relation  to  justice,  or  man  to 
man.  Property  is  incidental  in  the  play.  The 
value  of  the  ducats,  the  contents  of  the  boxes,  the 
claims  of  the  bond,  are  the  keys  which  open  the  door 
to  the  world  of  Vanity  Fair.  Thackeray  introduces 
us  to  the  people  of  this  region,  and  Shakespeare 
leaves  us  in  the  same  remarkable  company.  With 
the  skill  of  a  scholar,  who  knows  the  foibles  and  follies 
in  life,  he  has  unfolded  and  analyzed  the  vices  of 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  83 

mankind,  confining  his  people  to  a  limited  circle 
of  Venetians  who  are  used  to  illustrate  the  larger 
circle  of  worldlings,  cheapened  and  ruined  by  the 
ruling  passion  for  property  and  power.  Yes,  it  is 
a  comedy  of  intrigue,  and  too,  a  tragedy  of  selfishness 
which  taints  and  stains  everybody  in  the  play. 

In  contrast  with  this  other-worldliness,  with  its 
business  passions  and  racial  hatred,  selfishness  and 
self  interest,  the  dramatist  gives  us  the  glorious  night 
in  Belmont,  and  the  love  scene  between  Jessica  and 
Lorenzo,  when  the  moon  shines  bright  and  the 
gentle  kisses  of  the  breeze  move  the  trees — a  night 
which  makes  the  lovers  think  of  Troilus  mounting 
the  walls  of  Troy,  and  Cressid  sleeping  in  the 
tents  of  Greece. 

"In  such  a  night 

Did  Thisbe  fearfully  o'ertrip  the  dew, 
And  saw  the  lion's  shadow  ere  himself, 
And  ran  dismay 'd  away." 

And  so  the  lovers  thought  of  Dido  "with  a  willow 
in  her  hand  upon  the  wild  sea  banks,"  of  Medea 
gathering  "enchanted  herbs,"  and  of  the  night  Jessica 
stole  from  the  wealthy  Jew  and  ran  away  from  Venice 
to  Belmont.  It  was  the  hour  of  self -consciousness, 
born  of  a  resemblance  of  this  light  scene  and  a  former 
experience — a  vision  of  the  time  when  self  interest 
will  be  subject  to  a  better  order  in  the  domestic 
and  business  world.  Shakespeare  relieves  the  strain 


84  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

of  the  situation  which  presses  upon  the  nerves  through 
out  the  play,  by  giving  us  this  delightfully  beautiful 
and  suggestive  moonlight  scene  in  which  love  is  the 
sole  actor  on  the  stage.  "The  moonlight  sleeps  upon 
the  bank."  Here  they  sit  while  sounds  of  music 
creep  into  their  ears  and  the  soft  stillness  and  the 
night  are  in  harmony.  Above,  the  floor  of  heaven 
is  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold.  The  angel 
sings,  quiring  to  cherubines. 

"Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls; 
But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it." 


KING  RICHARD,  THE  THIRD,  THE  SATAN 
OF  SHAKESPEARE 

"Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  also  shall  he  reap." 
Galatians  6-7. 

MILTON'S  Satan  was  probably  inspired 
by  Richard  III.  That  an  English 
king  should  so  portray  the  nature  of 
the  devil  is  in  itself  a  matter  of  more 
than  ordinary  interest.  To  be  at  once  kingly  and 
Satanic,  to  rule  a  people  and  expose  a  soul  of  evil 
is  to  show  the  dualism  of  all  human  nature — the  Dr. 
Jekyl  and  Mr.  Hyde  of  mankind.  However  far  we 
seek  for  virtues  in  the  devil, — and  most  representa- 
tions disclose  some  dangerously  attractive  qualities, 
— in  Richard  we  have  some  favorable  traits.  Dan- 
gers are  often  beautiful.  The  singing  Sirens  were  as 
beautiful  as  the  hidden  rocks  were  dangerous. 
Poison  may  be  concealed  under  the  cover  of  gold 
or  hidden  in  the  heart  of  a  rose.  The  tiger  is  a 
strong  and  splendid  animal  whose  muscles  are  alive 
with  strength,  whose  eyes  are  like  precious  stones  of 
fire.  He  is  magnetic  but  dangerous.  The  eagle 
is  the  king  of  the  air — a  noble  bird  hiding  his  talons 
as  a  battleship  covers  her  guns.  The  Alps  are 

85 


86  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

majestic  and  inviting  with  white  peaks  and  crags 
and  precipices,  but  are  they  not  the  grave-yard  of 
tourists?  King  Richard  III  had  courage,  discern- 
ment, a  slight  touch  of  sympathy  now  and  then,  but 
all  in  all  a  veritable  devil,  a  butcher  of  men  whose 
court  was  the  slaughter-house  of  enemies.  From 
the  Latin  biography  of  Thomas  Moore,  Shakespeare 
got  scanty  information  of  the  characteristics  of 
Richard  who  is  reported,  "as  born  with  teeth.  He 
was  ugly,  his  left  shoulder  higher  than  his  right. 
Wickedness,  anger,  envy  belonged  to  his  nature,  a 
quick  sharp  wit  to  his  mind.  He  was  a  good  cap- 
tain; with  large  gifts  he  got  him  unsteadfast  friend- 
ship for  which  he  was  fain  to  pill  and  spoil  in  other 
places  and  got  him  steadfast  hatred.  Close  and 
secret  as  a  deep  dissembler  lowly  of  countenance,  he 
is  at  the  same  time  imperious  and  arrogant  of  heart, 
disdainful  in  death,  outwardly  companionable  where 
he  inwardly  hated,  not  letting  to  kiss  whom  he 
thought  to  kill;  disputatious  and  cruel,  not  for  evil- 
will  alway  but  oftener  for  ambition  and  policy. 
If  his  safety  or  his  ambition  interfered,  he  spared 
neither  friend  nor  foe."  These  traits  in  a  setting 
truly  historical  are  interpreted  without  exaggeration 
by  Shakespeare.  "He  who  possessed  neither  pity, 
love  nor  fear"  is  painted  with  bold  strokes  of  expres- 
sive color  and  he  stands  out  as  a  portrait  beside 
Macbeth  as  the  Satan  of  Shakespeare. 

His  chief  passion  was  to  gain  his  crown.     This  was 
his  only  concern  and  it  ruled  his  every  act.    Every- 


KING  RICHARD  87 

body  in  his  path  was  summarily  removed.  In  the 
first  act  he  murders  his  brother,  Clarence.  His 
soliloquies  are  revelations  of  his  character.  False 
to  his  brother  he  is  hypocritical  to  Lady  Anne,  whom 
he  first  wins  then  mocks.  Following  the  curses  of 
Margaret,  which  he  throws  off  his  conscience  with 
impunity,  he  murders  his  brother.  In  the  second 
act  we  have  the  death  of  Edward  IV.  Malice  and 
falsehood  toward  children,  mother  and  Buckingham 
prepare  for  mistrust.  The  third  act  records  the 
winning  of  the  throne  by  murder  and  hypocrisy. 
Rivers,  Grey,  Vaughn  and  Hastings  are  the  victims, 
and  religion  is  the  mask  worn  by  the  murderer. 
In  the  fourth  act  is  described  the  murder  of  the 
children  in  the  tower.  In  the  fifth,  the  curse  of 
retribution  begins  to  realize  itself  and  law  asserts 
its  authority. 

"  By  a  divine  instinct  men's  minds  mistrust 
Ensuing  danger;  as,  by  proof,  we  see 
The  water  swell  before  a  bois'trous  storm, — 
But  leave  it  all  to  God." 

The  two  tents  of  Richard  and  Richmond  are 
shown  side  by  side,  making  an  impressive  contrast 
between  good  and  evil.  In  the  one  Richard  com- 
mits himself  to  the  earthly  guards,  to  the  soldiers 
with  swords  and  armour.  Awakening  from  his 
sleep,  he  cries: 


88  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

"What  do  I  fear?  myself?  there's  none  else  by: 
Richard  loves  Richard;  that  is,  I  am  I. " 

Richmond  commits  himself  like  a  good  Christian 
to  God. 

"God  and  our  good  cause  fight  upon  one  side." 

The  conscience  of  Richard  is  swords  and  law.  The 
tragedy  of  Richard  is  like  a  candle  set  against  the 
words — "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  also  shall 
he  reap." 

The  character  of  Richard  is  explained  by  his 
physical  deformity,  which  not  unfrequently  deter- 
mines mental  operations.  Lord  Byron's  club  foot 
made  him  less  gentle  and  generous  and  created  a 
sensitiveness  which  marked  his  character.  Pope 
might  have  put  more  sweetness  in  his  "  Essay  on 
Man"  had  he  not  been  a  hunch-back.  Caliban  of 
Shakespeare's  "Tempest"  lives  again  in  his  crooked 
form  groveling  in  the  dust  in  Dickens'  Quilp.  Philip 
II  of  Spain,  like  Richard  III,  was  a  deformed  man 
and  atrocious  in  his  bloody  deeds.  The  apologetic 
based  upon  physical  defects  is  well  taken.  Prenatal 
conditions  go  far  to  explain  the  mystery  of  the 
notorious  criminals  who,  by  the  accident  of  govern- 
ment, have  been  made  the  rulers  of  the  people. 
"Void  of  natural  affection"  is  the  way  the  Scripture 
describes  the  mental  state  of  those  with  whom  nature 
has  dealt  ill. 


KING  RICHARD  89 

"Then,  since  the  heavens  have  shap'd  my  body 

so, 

Let  hell  make  crook'd  my  mind  to  answer  it." 

—(Henry  VI) 

"Whosoever,"  says  Bacon,  "hath  anything  fixed 
in  his  person  that  doth  induce  contempt,  hath  also 
a  perpetual  spur  in  himself  to  rescue  and  deliver 
himself  from  scorn." 

In  the  development  of  the  morality  of  the  play, 
Queen  Margaret  is  the  chief  character.  Whether 
her  place  has  or  has  not  historical  warrant,  she  has  a 
rightful  place  in  the  moral  structure  of  the  related 
events.  Her  curse  is  fixed  in  the  moral  order  of  the 
universe  as  is  the  law  of  gravity.  Margaret  was 
the  widow  of  King  Henry  VI  and  the  head  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster.  After  the  battle  of  Tewks- 
bury,  May,  1471,  she  was  confined  in  the  tower  till 
1475.  Having  been  ransomed  by  her  father  she 
went  to  France  where  she  died  in  1482.  This  shows 
that  her  part  in  the  drama  is  fictitious.  Her 
character  and  the  character  of  Richard  have  their 
roots  in  the  preceding  play  of  King  Henry  VI. 
Henry  V  died  in  1422,  after  notable  conquests  in 
France.  His  infant  son  afterwards  Henry  VI,  inher- 
ited the  crown.  At  the  age  of  twenty-two  he 
married  Margaret  of  Anjou.  "The  Wars  of  the 
Roses"  which  ended  with  the  death  of  Richard  III 
were  caused  by  the  contest  for  the  French  provinces. 
Margaret  figured  in  these  events.  "The  irritations 


90  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

caused  by  the  losses  in  France  are  represented  by 
Shakespeare  as  so  many  eggs  of  discord  in  the  nest 
of  English  life  and  Maragret  as  the  hot-breasted 
fury  that  hatched  them  into  effect;  her  haughty,  vin- 
dictive temper,  her  indomitable  energy  and  fire- 
spouting  tongue  fitting  her  to  be  as  indeed  she  was 
a  constant  provoker  and  stirrer  of  hatred  and 
strifes"  (Hudson).  Shakespeare  introduces  her  as 
Nemesis.  In  the  myths  of  old,  Nemesis  was  the 
daughter  of  Ocean  and  Night,  the  goddess  of  retrib- 
utive fury,  clothed  in  a  tunic,  and  drawn  in  a  car 
hitched  to  dragons.  In  the  realm  of  religion  she 
was  the  personification  of  justice,  the  terrible  declara- 
tion of  divine  law.  She  is  the  Nemesis  of  Richard 
III  and  her  curse  is  phrased  in  words  of  fire.  She 
calls  him  dog,  "the  troubler  of  the  poor  world's 
peace. "  She  calls  upon  the  worm  of  conscience  to 
still  begnaw  his  soul,  and  that  no  sleep  close  up  his 
deadly  eye,  unless  in  some  tormenting  dream  he  is 
frightened  with  the  hell  of  ugly  devils.  Her  descrip- 
tion exhausts  adjectives  and  makes  use  of  such 
words  as  "  elvish-mark'd,  abortive,  rooting  hog — 
Thou  rag  of  honour!  thou  detested."  If  Nemesis 
is  a  fire,  conscience  is  the  fuel  which  feeds  it.  Mar- 
garet's mighty  curse  is  but  the  vocal  thunder  report- 
ing the  explosion  of  conscience.  What  is  conscience? 
The  philosophers  from  Confucius  to  Kant  define 
it  as  enlightened  reason;  Epicurus  Hobbes,  Bentham 
and  others  as  the  instinct  of  individual  preservation. 
It  has  been  defined  as  the  instinct  of  social  preserva- 


KING  RICHARD  91 

tion.  Leslie  Stephens  in  the  "  Conscience  of  Ethics  " 
says — Conscience  is  the  torture  of  public  spirit  of 
the  social  order,  as  to  obey  primary  conditions  for 
its  welfare.*  Conscience  has  to  do  with  God  in  the 
soul  of  man — that  remnant  goodness  resident  in  us 
all.  A  gift  rather  than  a  voice,  a  capacity  rather 
than  a  special  Providence  uttering  himself  to  our 
conscience  of  good  and  evil.  The  moral  law  of 
God  within  and  the  starry  heavens  above  im- 
pressed Kant — this  is  conscience,  a  knowing  with 
God,  the  soul's  secret  understanding  with  the  Al- 
mighty. It  might  be  educated  or  seared  as  with  a 
hot  iron.  When  our  conscience  is  on  good  terms 
with  God  we  are  happy.  When  it  is  unfriendly  with 
God  we  are  filled  with  remorse.  In  Richard  we  have  a 
spectacle  of  a  man  overcoming  his  conscience  snuffing 
out  the  "light  that  lighteth  every  man  who  cometh 
into  the  world."  The  historical  setting  of  this 
tragedy  of  the  inner  life  is  impressively  described 
by  Shakespeare  in  what  takes  place  the  night  before 
the  battle  of  Bosworth  field. 

*"As  a  fact  the  conscience  is  the  ideal  of  the  self,  coming 
to  consciousness  as  a  present  command.  It  says,  Be  loyal. 
If  one  asks,  Loyal  to  what?  the  conscience  awakened  by  our 
whole  personal  response  to  the  need  of  mankind  replies,  Be 
loyal  to  loyalty.  If  hereupon  various  loyalties  conflict,  the  con- 
science says,  Decide.  If  one  asks,  How  decide?  conscience  fur- 
ther urges,  Decide  as  I  your  conscience  the  ideal  expression  of 
your  whole  personal  nature  conscience  and  unconscience  finds 
best.  If  one  persists,  But  you  and  I  may  be  wrong,  the  last 
word  of  conscience  is,  We  are  fallible,  but  we  can  be  decisive 
and  faithful  and  this  is  loyalty." — (RoYCE — "The  Philosophy 
of  Loyalty" — -Page  195.) 


92  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

Richard  has  a  dream. 

"Give  me  another  horse;  bind  up  my  wounds. 
Have  mercy,  Jesu! — Soft!  I  did  but  dream. 

0  coward  conscience,  how  dost  thou  afflict  me! 
The  lights  burn  blue.     It  is  now  dead  midnight. 
Cold  fearful  drops  stand  on  my  trembling  flesh. 
What  do  I  fear?  myself?  there's  none  else  by: 
Richard  loves  Richard;  that  is,  I  am  I. 

Is  there  a  murderer  here?     No.     Yes,  I  am: 
Then   fly.     What,    from    myself?     Great   reason 

why: 

Lest  I  revenge.     What,  myself  upon  myself? 
Alack,  I  love  myself.     Wherefore?  for  any  good 
That  I  myself  have  done  unto  myself? 
O,  no!  alas,  I  rather  hate  myself 
For  hateful  deeds  committed  by  myself! 

1  am  a  villain;  yet  I  lie,  I  am  not. 

Fool,  of  thyself  speak  well;  fool,  do  not  flatter. 
My  conscience  hath  a  thousand  several  tongues, 
And  every  tongue  brings  in  a  several  tale, 
And  every  tale  condemns  me  for  a  villain. 
Perjury,  perjury,  in  the  high'st  degree; 
Murder,  stern  murder,  in  the  direst  degree; 
All  several  sins,  all  used  in  each  degree, 
Throng  to  the  bar,  crying  all,  Guilty!  guilty! 
I  shall  despair.     There  is  no  creature  loves  me; 
And  if  I  die,  no  soul  shall  pity  me: 
Nay,  wherefore,  should  they,  since  that  I  myself 
Find  in  myself  no  pity  to  myself! 


KING  RICHARD  93 

Methought  the  souls  of  all  that  I  had  murder'd 
Came  to  my  tent:  and  every  one  did  threat 
To-morrow's  vengeance  on  the  head  of  Richard. " 

A  man  wholly  bad  would  not  have  such  a  horrid 
dream.  He  would  not  have  dreamed  at  all.  This 
vision  is  a  quickening  of  conscience,  the  still  small 
voice  will  not  quickly  be  silenced.  The  worm 
already  turned  dies  hard.  Richard  succeeds  in 
overcoming  his  better  nature,  but  the  tragedy 
culminates  not  in  the  death  of  his  body  but  in  the 
loss  of  his  soul.  In  this  realistic  description  of  a 
struggle  between  right  and  wrong  the  return  of  the 
dead  emphasizes  the  moral  significance  of  the  situa- 
tion. For  the  first  time  Richard  grasps  the  meaning 
of  retribution — a  law  which  he  has  steadfastly  stood 
against  with  impunity,  setting  it  aside  as  unworthy 
his  serious  acceptance. 

"By  the  apostle  Paul,  shadows  tonight 
Have  struck  more  terror  to  the  soul  of  Richard 
Than  can  the  substance  of  ten  thousand  soldiers 
Armed  in  proof,  and  led  by  shallow  Richmond. " 

The  return  of  the  dead  bringing  to  him  the  soul'sre- 
morse,  plunging  him  into  the  fires  of  hell,  is  governed 
by  a  law  which  he  cannot  escape.  It  is  the  expiring 
gasp  of  his  soul's  consciousness — the  last  moving 
picture  thrown  upon  the  transient  curtain  of  his 
better  manhood,  and  his  forehead  is  wet  with  the 


94  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

sweat  of  the  conflict,  all  of  which  is  expressed 
in  the  wisdom  that  we  reap  what  we  sow,  we  get 
what  we  give.  If  we  sow  murders,  we  reap  the 
harvest  and  get  out  of  the  world  what  we  put  into 
it.  "With  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be 
measured  to  you  again."  There  is  an  inevitable 
reciprocity  between  the  thing  we  do  and  the  world 
in  which  we  do  it.  The  rebound  of  our  own  life 
is  the  hell  from  which  we  would  be  delivered.  This 
moral  law  is  acknowledged  by  Richard  as  he  starts 
from  his  slumber.  Conscious  of  his  eternal  isola- 
tion from  humanity  he  shrieks  "There  is  no  creat- 
ure loves  me."  He  who  played  with  love  and  never 
honored  it  now  sees  his  house  of  gold  crumbled  in- 
to dust.  Love  itself  becomes  law  and  smites  him 
as  with  a  sword.  His  life  centered  in  selfishness  is 
its  own  punishment.  This  is  the  tragedy  of  King 
Richard  III.  "I  myself  find  in  myself  no  pity  to 
myself."  The  next  day  we  have  the  outward 
confirmation  of  this  inward  defeat,  a  fact  which 
need  not  particularly  interest  us  since  it  is  but 
the  physical  refrain  of  a  mental  tragedy  and  the 
logical  consequence  of  the  inner  disruption  of  law 
and  order.  Richmond  was  the  logical  end  of 
Richard.  He  who  represents  the  moral  order  of 
the  world  must  make  conquest  upon  Richard,  who 
would  pull  down  the  moral  structure  with  his  own 
hands.  In  further  recognition  of  the  situation  he 
uses  these  words : 


KING  RICHARD  95 

"Slave,  I  have  set  my  life  upon  a  cast, 

And  I  will  stand  the  hazard  of  the  die; 

I  think  there  be  six  Richmonds  in  the  field; 

Five  have  I  slain  today  instead  of  him. 

A  horse!  a  horse!  my  kingdom  for  a  horse!" 

This  then  is  Shakespeare's  analysis  of  King 
Richard  III,  a  study  which  opens  to  the  student 
inviting  fields  for  the  consideration  of  its  ethical 
aspects.  Richard  is  a  study  in  monstrosity.  That 
he  is  unusual  and  abnormal  physically  and  in  his 
moral  structure,  is  obvious  to  many  students  of  his 
prenatal  and  subsequent  history.  He  belongs  to 
the  monsters  who,  rising  above  their  fellows  in  deter- 
mination, in  power  of  will,  have  made  an  impression 
upon  history  by  the  sheer  force  of  personality 
possessed  with  the  qualities  of  bold  and  courageous 
wickedness.  The  possibilities  of  human  nature  are 
suggestively  discussed  in  this  man's  unique  per- 
sonality. His  sins  are  written  so  large  that  we  must 
see  them.  The  difference  between  men  is  largely  a 
difference  of  religious  instincts  and  spiritual  training. 
Great  saints  might  be  great  sinners.  Contrariwise 
great  shiners  have  in  them  the  basic  qualities  of  great 
saints.  The  potter  has  more  to  do  with  the  clay 
in  shaping  its  design  than  clay  has  to  do  with  itself. 
Human  nature  is  much  the  same.  That  which 
determines  human  nature  in  its  moral  destiny  is  the 
touch  from  without.  Much  depends  upon  whose 
hands  shape  us,  what  ideal  rules  us,  to  what  spirit 


96  SHAKESPEAREAN  STUDIES 

we  submit  as  the  government  of  our  inner  lives.  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi  is  the  extreme  opposite  to  King 
Richard  III,  but  both  men  lived  in  the  same  world 
and  had  the  same  passions.  St.  Francis  suffused 
Europe  with  his  holiness.  King  Richard  left  in  his 
pathway  nought  but  wreck  and  ruin.  There  is  as 
much  difference  between  these  two  characters  as 
there  is  between  the  foul  Miasmic  pool  and  the  clear 
shining  star.  One  has  music,  the  other  clash  and 
discord.  The  one  is  remembered  by  the  world-wide 
system  of  religious  devotion  and  the  other  is  remem- 
bered for  the  blood  he  shed.  The  extremes  of  life 
cannot  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  of  hereditary 
prenatal  conditions,  physical  deformity,  national 
ideals  or  social  environment.  These  enter  into  the 
formation  of  character  but  do  not  answer  all  the 
questions  which  are  raised  in  the  presence  of  a  really 
wicked  man.  Nero  and  St.  Bernard  are  opposites. 
Why  a  Nero  and  why  a  Bernard  of  Clarveaux? 
What  constitutes  the  difference  between  Paul  and 
Caesar  or  between  John  the  Baptist  and  Herod? 
What  is  the  difference  between  a  man  who  reddens 
his  hands  in  blood  and  the  man  who  lays  down  his 
life  for  God?  Does  it  not  involve  the  whole  matter 
of  religion?  The  history  of  character  cannot  be 
confined  to  the  history  of  flesh  and  blood.  These 
have  much  to  do  with  the  formation  of  character, 
but  character  is  rooted  in  other  soil  and  grows  out  of 
other  conditions.  Golden  conduct  is  not  fashioned 
out  of  leaden  instincts.  The  social  remedies  offered 


KING  RICHARD  97 

for  the  reconstruction  of  the  world  fall  short  when 
they  fail  to  include  a  downright  religious  cause. 
To  separate  political  or  social  economy  from  religious 
conditions  and  spiritual  principles  is  to  signally  fail 
to  comprehend  at  once  the  need  and  the  remedy  of 
modern  society.  The  difference  between  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  if  I  may  continue  the  comparison,  and 
King  Richard  is  the  difference  of  a  vision  of  truth. 
The  one  saw  the  truth  and  brought  it  down  into  his 
life  which  he  beautified  and  adorned  with  its  spiritual 
power.  The  other  did  not  see  the  truth.  There- 
fore one  was  a  saint  and  the  other  a  criminal.  This 
carries  with  it  this  profoundly  important  lesson 
that — "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  also  shall  a 
man  reap." 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


REG  D  LD 


DEC  1  6  196 


LD  21A-50m-8,'61 
(C1795slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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